The Rules Have Changed
by spatula spatula
Summary: (NEW - 11 of 18!) What do you do when the huntress has become the hunted?
1. I

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

Keywords: action, romance  
Category: Miss Parker/Jarod  
Spoilers: _The Island of the Haunted_  
Summary: What do you do when the huntress becomes the hunted? 

AN: Updated 07/30/02 to reflect a new email address. 

* * *

**_PART ONE_**

_February 2002_

Her legs ached as she pushed tired feet against the cold pavement. Her boots were hardly ideal for running in the first place, much less with the variable of the last night's rain. The residual moisture left the ground slick, and as she skidded around the corner, she momentarily felt her feet lose themselves around her. Her left hand (her gun lay nestled in her right) braced her against the cold, wet brick of the alleyway, and she resumed the chase. 

Behind her, a puddle splashed: Lyle. Again they were playing nice, pretending to be the cordial brother and sister they were not. They didn't share leads anymore, and Parker most certainly did not report to him like she once had. The only reason he and his sweeper team were in close pursuit behind her was that Broots had made the mistake of speaking a little too loud that morning in the Centre lobby. Now they both new of Jarod's latest occupation: homicide detective in New York City. 

She managed to catch a glimpse of retreating black hair, and for a moment, her mind wandered to the question of why. Why, of all places, had Jarod chosen New York City? Sure, in the wake of all that had happened, it was a magnet for a good Samaritan like Jarod, but with those tragedies also came a higher level of scrutiny. Or so she assumed. 

At the end of the alley, she noticed that Jarod could go either right or left. He hesitated, she saw, and she wondered if both were dead-ends. She could only hope she picked the right one, and found him standing innocently at the end with his hands in surrender. That would be the day. 

She had her personal safety to worry about, after all. 

"Parker!" 

Her head whirled at the sound of her brother's voice, her body still running, but one of the occupants of the surrounding buildings took that moment to turn on the dryer. In the cold dryness of winter, the steam vented into the alley, filling the air with the smell of detergent and semi-thick cloud of white. Lyle's form was lost in the sea of steam. 

In the next instant, she looked back at Jarod, but found his body gone. Shit. The last thing she needed was Jarod disappearing right in front of her eyes, right in front of Lyle. She knew he'd jump at the chance, now more than ever, to crucify her. 

She slowed to a jump, looking side to side. It was her own worst nightmare. Both alleys led onto busy Manhattan streets. Jarod had escaped again. Her eyes lingered on the black catwalk, squinting and praying for a crouching figure on them. No such luck. 

A gunshot shattered the brick on the wall facing her. 

Parker's first reaction was to duck, thinking the shot had come from above. Why would Jarod shoot at her? Only as she moved did she feel the searing pain shooting up her right arm. It was so intense that her fingers loosened their grip on the 9 mm in her hand, and the gun fell to the ground, lying useless on the pavement. 

Her back pressed against the wall, she watched Lyle emerge from the cloud of steam, gun in hand. His smile of satisfaction sickened her. She was gripping her arm now, feeling the warm blood leaking through her hands. Her breath was ragged as it puffed out in front of her. 

"What?" he asked innocently, standing five feet away. He leveled the gun at her, aiming straight between her eyes. "You're not going to plead for your life?" 

"Go to Hell, Lyle," she spat. 

Instead, he chuckled, his composure calm. It was disgusting. "I really am going to miss your wry wit, Miss Parker." 

He frowned mockingly. "It's a shame you're going to die alone in some alleyway in New York City. You deserve so much better." Adding, "but then, that's the price you pay for not asking 'how high,' when the Centre said 'jump.'" 

She knew she should have expected that Lyle would settle this contest between them with a gun in a back alley. He moved, Parker flinched inwardly, but instead of pressing the trigger, he continued his small speech. She wondered if this was the worst part for all the women Lyle had crossed over the years: the waiting before the end. 

"You had your chance, of course, in fact you probably had one too many chances for your own good. Always went crying to Daddy when you were stuck in a jam. Except there's no one who cares anymore, Sis." He pursed his lips. "Poor little Miss Parker." 

Parker glanced up at the catwalk. Did she hear movement, or was that just her imagination? 

Lyle caught her. "He doesn't care, either." That brought her back. "Don't look so shocked, Sis. He's so close to his family you're slowly becoming useless to him. Which," Lyle added with a smirk, "means you're becoming useless to us, too." 

Us. He included the Centre administration in his declaration before murder. Which didn't make it murder. It made it- 

"You got it," he replied. Realization must have dawned on her face. 

His finger cocked the trigger on the 9 mm in his hand. Despite the icy facade she had spent years perfecting, she couldn't help the breath she involuntarily took in. She didn't want to die now, here, alone. 

His question punctuated the city silence of the alleyway. "Any last words?" 

Years seemed to pass between them. She couldn't find anything to say; hell, she wasn't sure if she wanted to dignify his request. She simply stared, letting time slow and lethargically pass them by. Each assumed the other would say something, do something, to provoke the moment. Despite the turmoil of the moment, both were surprisingly calm, as one faced murder at the hands of her own blood. Well, maybe her own blood. For that Parker wasn't completely sure of, not anymore. 

"Guess not," he supplied for her. 

Parker shifted a bit, and intense pain again shot up her arm. There was simply too much pain for the bullet to have simply grazed the flesh, and she feared that there was a discarded scrap of metal now embedded in her upper left arm. But then, she thought objectively, that was the least of her worries at the moment. 

Lyle straightened his aim, correcting the angle slightly to compensate for her slight lean now that her pain had returned. He gazed into her eyes, and Parker wasn't surprised to find not an ounce of compassion in his icy stare. 

He opened his mouth to speak, possibly wishing her farewell and promising to meet her in the afterlife, when the gunshot cut him short. Instinctively, Parker's eyes flew shut and she ducked, and thought she felt the scrap of metal enter between her eyes. She froze, waiting to feel her lifeless body slide down the cold brick wall. She suddenly wondered if the bullet entering her frontal lobe would cause instant death. 

It was so cliche: it took a moment for her mind to register the fact that no pain had been inflicted. Cautious to open her eyes, Parker wondered if this was what death felt like, to sudden go from instant peril to an atmosphere of zero pain. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid she would have some godforsaken out-of-body experience. Dead or not, the last thing she needed was the image of her bleeding corpse sliding lifelessly down a wall. 

She moved an inch and for a third time was greeted by intense pain in her arm. Either she'd entered Hell, where pain was like oxygen, or she wasn't dead. Her mind voted for the latter, and made a mental note to go ease on the injured limb. 

"Parker!" A second voice, a familiar voice. 

Her eyes slid open and she heard the metal rungs of the catwalk scrap against the wall as Jarod bounded down them. A .38 hung loosely from a free hand. Lyle was lying lifeless on the cold asphalt, his blood spilling out and mingling with a puddle of water and city grim. A fitting end, she surmised. 

He was on street level now, advancing towards her. "Parker," he called to her again, but she didn't respond. No matter how much she disgusted the man he was and the things he had done, she couldn't pull her eyes from her brother. He looked like a piece of discarded trash. 

"He's..." she began. 

The corpse groaned. Perhaps not a corpse after all. 

"...still alive," Jarod finished. His hand gripped her elbow, jarring her hand from its position as emergency bandage and causing slight more pain. Neither noticed. He was pulling her down the alley he had earlier retreated down. "We've got too move quick." 

She glared at Jarod, trying to find some signal that he was lying to her, that this was some elaborate trap. That, or a very bad albeit real dream. But she couldn't find anything, only the unchecked compassion and worry in his eyes. Despite what Lyle had said, he actually appeared to care. 

Both could hear the footsteps of Lyle's sweeper team -- or was it hers? -- making their way down the alley. Parker could almost make out shapes in the clearing laundry steam. Apparently, someone had heard the gunshots. Oh, she thought, what a surprise they'll stumble upon. 

"Miss Parker," Jarod warned. 

Taking one last glimpse at Lyle - whose wound hadn't rendered him completely immobile, and who was begin to move lethargically against what she assumed was a hole in abdomen - Parker let Jarod lead her down the alley. Her footsteps were labored, each contact with the asphalt sending small shoots of pain through her entire body. Amazing, she thought, at the amount of pain a small hole in her upper arm could cause. 

There was a small black sports car waiting at the entrance to the alley, and Parker hardly waited for the gentleman in Jarod to open the door before she bounded in. As they peeled away from the alleyway, and Miss Parker glanced around to see sweepers -- Lyle's sweepers -- skidding to a halt where the alley met the busy Manhattan street, she suddenly realized why Jarod had picked New York City. 

In rush hour, you could disappear. 

TBC 


	2. II

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART TWO_**

Their exodus from New York City was done in the heaviest of silences, as if the utterance of a single word might give away their location to the sweeper team combing the city. Jarod kept his eyes on the road, though Parker could occasionally feel his gaze briefly on her, but by the time she turned to look at him, he was already back on the road. They played this game down through Times Square and the Lincoln Tunnel. 

Without a word, Jarod maneuvered the vehicle into the southbound lane. Parker dared not to ask what was south of New York City, save for Blue Cove, fearing the twisted answer she anticipated. Instead, she kept to herself, looking out the passing scenery, the retreating skyline of the city framed by the shrinking sun. Dusk was upon them. 

Putting the residual light -- and their highway coasting speed of 65 MPH -- to good use, Parker unbuckled her seat belt and carefully peeled off her black jacket (her _new_ and expensive black jacket) to inspect the damage Lyle's gun had caused. She winced as the material ripped away from the parts of the skin where it had been acting as a makeshift bandage. The sleeve of her crisp, tailored white shirt was stained burgundy. Feeling around the skin, she found that for the most part, the bleeding had stopped. 

"Looks pretty bad." 

His comment only interested her slightly. She glared at him for a moment before returning her gaze to the wound, and her more immediate question: the possibility of a bullet lodging itself in her flesh. She wondered suddenly if Jarod happened to have any bandages floating around in the glove compartment. However, she surmised from the distinct smell of the vehicle's interior that Jarod hadn't exactly had time to stock it up with the essentials of running for your life. 

Running for her life. Parker refused to think of herself as the prey in Lyle's thirst for blood. 

"You _could_ help me," she suggested absentmindedly. She wasn't sure if she actually wanted his help -- after all, despite his impeccable timing, she hadn't exactly invited him to be her knight in shining armor -- but the need to keep of this game of theirs, taunting and teasing, struck her as the appropriate course of action for the moment. Anything to keep her mind of the pain, which increased with each movement. 

"Duffel bag, behind the driver's seat." 

Did he enjoy watching her wriggle in pain? Apparently so. She grabbed the bag that came complete with new waves of pain, and unzipped it. Inside was everything she needed: antiseptic, bandages, gauze... 

"Ever the Boy Scout," she commented. 

Parker had to rip along the seam of her shirt in order to properly bandage the wound. It was somewhat of a tight fit inside the vehicle's interior as she wrapped the small ace bandage around her arm. Granted, not the most effective bandage she'd ever done, but considering the circumstances, it was impressive. 

He kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. "Take out your cell phone." 

"Excuse me?" Now he was glaring at _her_ and he didn't seem to be in the mood to bicker. "Fine," she conceded. 

Her unbandaged arm reached into her back waistband and pulled out the small phone. She replaced her seat belt. As Jarod's gaze darted between the phone and the duffel bag, Parker feared his next request would include chucking both items out of the car. 

"There's a scrambler in that bag. Attach it to the bottom of your phone." His request was cool and collected, as if this was something or than life and death. "You don't want the Centre tracking your cell signal, now do you?" 

She replied coolly, "You could just tell me to chuck the phone." 

"Don't tempt me." He was grinning like a fool. 

Halfway through New Jersey, they veered east, crossing into Pennsylvania. Even in the semi-early hour, dusk had come and gone, and darkness now settled on the unfamiliar surroundings. How long had they been driving? Despite her assumption that Jarod had arrived in that alleyway fully prepared, eventually they would have to stop for gas. Parker kept glancing nervously at the gas gage and the numerous passing rest stops. A few times Jarod caught her, but said nothing and smiled. 

Where the hell were they going? Parker hoped he wasn't just aimlessly driving somewhere. 

Three hours away from the city, somewhere west of Philadelphia, Jarod finally pulled off the Turnpike and into the rest area. He had barely turned off the ignition and put the black sports car in park before she was flying out of the car. She felt the grimy city air blast her face, but compared to the car ride she had just endured, it was a bit of 'freedom' she was glad to have. Before she slammed the car door, she made it a point to grab her jacket -- to hide the bandage and keep her warm -- and her cellphone from the console. 

He didn't question her hasty exit. Parker thanked God for simple pleasures. 

The rest area smelled like greasy travel food: truck drivers and families of five and six packed into the fast food joint embedded in the building, while commuters jonesing for a caffeine hit waited patiently in the curly-Q line that was the Starbucks kiosk. The bubble crowd surprised Parker, considering the hour, but maybe it wasn't half bad. In a crowd she would hardly stand out. For a moment, she felt what Jarod must have felt, but quickly shook the feeling. 

In the restroom, she inspected her appearance in a dingy mirror framed by out-of-place bouquets of fresh flowers. At first glance one might not have noticed she made barely escaped with her life from a back alley in New York City hours earlier. Of course, on further inspection, the dark rings under her eyes gave away her stress and exhaustion. She massaged the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut to will away the sudden wave of dizziness, and quickly remembered the bandage on her arm as a dull throb reminded her. 

Next to her was a woman, mid 20's with dingy, stringy blonde hair. Her face showed the kind of road-weary daze induced by a minivan full of three children. Parker wondered how a woman could put herself in that situation. The woman was staring quite noticeably at Parker's sleeve, at the dried burgundy stain she could only guess was blood. 

"What?" Parker snapped. The woman, put off by her defensive response, retreated. Parker didn't bother to watch her leave, leaving her alone in the bathroom. How unusual, she remarked, considering the traffic outside. She didn't, however, make much use of the observation. 

_Ring!_

The shrill ring of her cell phone startled her, coming almost as if on cue. For a moment, Parker simply stared at the piece of technology as it rang; or rather, the rather crude device slapped on the bottom of it. If she answered the call, she would be putting her trust in something Jarod probably wiped up from spare parts and things he bought at Radio Shack. This was her life she was talking about here, and the last thing she wanted to do was deliver herself to the Centre with a nice big ribbon in the form of a telephone signal. 

_Ring!_

Whoever was on the other end of the phone call was persistent, which meant it could only be one person. He'd be worried, she knew, worried about them both. She took a deep breath, suppressing the second wave of lightheadedness by bracing herself against the sink, and made a decision. 

"Sydney?" she answered. The need in her own voice surprised her. 

"Parker," he sighed over the line, and Parker could imagine the grin on his face. "Are you all right?" 

"I'm..." She glanced at herself in the mirror, wondering how much she should lie. "I've been better." 

He got straight to the point. "Where are you?" 

"Sydney," she chided. "You know I can't tell you that." 

Parker knew that he knew. They were half playing to whoever may be listening in, half trying to extract information from one another. Now it was her turn. 

"How's Lyle?" It made her sick that she even cared. 

"Recovering in the Infirmary," replied Sydney. "You should thank Jarod for being such a lucky shot." 

She bucked at the remark. "I would hope it was more than luck, Sydney, say...good aim?" 

She heard him smiling. "So you're with Jarod." It was the question he hadn't asked. 

"I never said that." 

He chuckled. Perhaps, she thought, it was a defense mechanism on his part. "I'm sure Jarod's slapped some sort of scrambling device on your phone, Parker. They won't be able to trace your call." 

"They could still be listening, Syd." Her paranoia surprised her. 

The sound of heels clicking along the tiled floors startled Parker, and thinking they belonged to sweepers, she hunched over her phone and tucked herself as much in a corner as she manage without generating much undue attention. Only when she cast a glance at the entering figure did she notice that it belonged to a woman in a business suit with a small child perched on her hip. Not a sweeper, she assured herself. 

"Parker?" Sydney asked. He sounded frantic when she hadn't spoken. 

"I should go." Her voice was more a whisper. 

He paused for a moment. "Be careful, Parker." 

"Thanks, Syd," she replied genuinely. She quickly ended the call, tucking the phone back into her waistband. 

* 

The walk back to the car was slightly more taxing than she had expected. By now the bullet in her arm had been sitting there for over three hours, her every movement aggravating it. She surmised that the dizziness she had experienced in the bathroom hadn't been simple exhaustion, instead linked to the infection she could have been developing. Seeing Jarod leaning against the car with a self-satisfying grin on his face, probably from having successfully filled the gas tank, Parker tried to pretend she was fine. 

"Feel better?" he asked as she approached, making his way back to the driver's seat. It was a question that she didn't dignify. She also decided *not* to inform him about her conversation with Sydney. 

"Just..." She didn't finish, instead bracing herself against the car frame as another wave passed over her. First, the pain and now this. She wasn't sure how much longer she could put up with these constant attacks on her immune system. Parker knew that the bullet in her arm would eventually have to come out before it killed her. "...drive." 

She took her frustration out on the car door, swinging it rather violently open. No doubt Jarod noticed, but hell, she didn't very much care _what_ he thought. 

Entering the highway again, she engaged him in the conversation that had abstained from on their previous drive. "Mind letting me know where exactly we're going?" 

Jarod didn't take his eyes from the road "A seedy motel in a small town along the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. We're staying the night." Adding, "I'll change that bandage for you, too." 

She glared at him. "And after that?" 

He looked at her once, regarded her, and was staring at the road again. "You and I have some catching-up to do." 

* 

The young lab tech tried not to tremble as the older man leaned over his shoulder. Even in the noisy communications room, he could hear the man's wheezing breaths. 

He saw Raines' satisfied expression reflected in his computer terminal as the telephone call ended. "Locate them," he commanded. 

The tech gulped. "Um, that's the thing, sir, I'm running into some kind of, um, well, interference." 

"Interference?" Uh oh, the tech noticed, he didn't like Raines' tone. 

"Yeah, feedback or something. I, uh, can't seem to make heads or tails of it." 

The tech heard Raines mutter something under his breath; a name or a word, he wasn't sure. After a moment, he felt a cold hand clamp on his shoulder, and a shiver ran down his spine. He prayed Raines didn't notice how much he scared the living daylights out of him. 

"Find her," he hissed. 

The tech didn't turn to watch Raines retreat, instead listening as the oxygen tank squeaked into the distance. 

TBC 


	3. III

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART THREE_**

She couldn't sleep. Despite the darkness and the repetitive and lulling sound of the tires on the pavement, she couldn't will herself to simply close her eyes and fall into a dreamless sleep. Maybe it was the dull ache in her head, and the small rumble in her stomach. She had forgotten to grab a bite to eat at the rest stop hours ago, and it didn't seem like Jarod had planned for her appetite. Of all things. 

She knew she was at least dozing on and off. The clock seemed to jump from 7:43 to 8:05. Not once had Jarod expressed exhaustion from driving for over six hours. Parker wondered just where this seedy motel was, but didn't have the energy to threaten him if he just pulling her chain. 

She been dozing off again, and in the back of her mind she could hear Jarod saying something, but she couldn't will herself to care enough to open her eyes and ask him to repeat him. So she decided to nestle into her seat and ignore him, pretending to be asleep. 

Suddenly he was shaking her more violently than her head would have liked. 

"Parker!" he was shouting. "Wake up!" 

Opening her eyes, she saw worried plastered all over his face. In a way it made her very sad. "What?" she asked groggily. 

"I..." He didn't answer. To cover his embarrassment, he focused back on the road. "You didn't answer me, that's all." 

Parker understood. She sighed inaudibly. He must have thought she had slipped into unconsciousness. Cute, she thought. 

"I was asleep," Parker reminded him, even though she wasn't. 

Jarod cast a disbelieving look at her, and she could have sworn he was cracking a smile, too. "No, you weren't." 

"Of course I was," she countered, surprised at the groggy playfulness in her voice. He surprised her by flashing a characteristic smile -- it was surprising because it often did not appear without an accompanying tease or practical joke. No, here, she remarked, it seemed genuine, and she didn't really seem to mind as she glanced back out the window. 

Parker noticed they were no longer on the interstate. When, she wondered, had they pulled off and gone through the toll booth? Had that been during one of her dozing periods? They passed motel after motel, dimly lit and posting 'vacancy' signs. Some were much dingier than others, and as one of the more decrepit ones approached, she prayed Jarod had at least gotten the high end of the shitholes in Pennsylvania. 

"How's your arm?" Jarod asked. 

"Fine," she replied automatically. Adding somewhat truthfully, "a little sore. I'll live." She still didn't disclose her dizziness at the rest stop. 

Pause. "I know you didn't change the bandage, Parker." 

The comment through her for a loop. "What?" In all honesty, she wasn't sure if she was missing out a key piece of information. 

"At the rest stop," he continued. "I thought you knew you were supposed to change your bandage every three hours or so. Prevents infection." 

They were three hours out of city, her on the run from a Centre-issued death sentence and him with a sweeper team intent on preventing him from ever again experiencing the outside world, and he was worried about whether or not her _wound_ got infected? 

All traces of her relatively good mood were gone. "Well, excuse me," she snapped. "I had more pressing things on my mind." 

"Like a phone call?" His eyes were steady on the road. 

Her head whipped around. Not pleasant for her headache, but her anger didn't really care. In a second her mind connected the pieces: while no doubt he had managed to supply her phone with a scrambling device, he most likely always included a listening device, as well. 

"You bugged my phone," she hissed. Good ol' Miss Parker was back. 

Jarod, however, was his ever-smug self. Now she remembered how pissed off she had been ours ago. "I had to take the necessary precautions." 

She couldn't order him to do anything to shut him up, and this lack of power annoyed her. She could only sit and sulk in the passenger seat as he drove to God knows where. What's worse was she understood why he had done what he did, and the contradiction infuriated her more. 

The last part of the trip -- no more than ten miles, she was sure -- seemed like hours as they sat in tense silence. For almost six hours they had managed not to kill one another, and in one instant all their hard work had dissolved. It was heaven when Jarod pulled the sports car into the Jolly Roger Motel, with a large image of a pirate with an eyepatch as a holy image. Her coupled exhaustion and annoyance allowed her to ignore the flickering neon 'Free HBO' sign. 

Jarod parked the car near the manager's office, but to her surprise, noticed that he was instead walking towards the direction of the rooms. Parker slammed the car door in protest, ignoring the shock it sent up her arm. 

"Do _not_ tell me you've already got a room," she warned loudly. 

In compliance, he said nothing; only held up a silver room key that shined in the pale pink reflection of the motel's neon sign. Attached was a large plastic keychain, imprinted with the same image of a pirate and the number three. Jarod smiled, and turned back towards the room. Parker could only sigh in disgust and shake her head. 

She heard the manager's door creak open, and a small old man appeared in the door, framed by the light of his well-lit office. The sound of an old television wafted out. "Mr. Flemming!" the old man -- Parker assumed he was the manager -- called out. His voice rasped with the hint of a severe cigarette addiction. Jarod stopped at the man's calling, and turned to him with a look of recognition. Parker groaned inwardly. "Didn't think you'd be back so soon!" 

The manager was advancing on the pair. He was short, and slightly dirty. Parker tried her damnedest to make her opinion of him known with a simple snarl. "I had Bessie change the sheets on the bed," he commented. Then he looked at Parker and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. His intention was obvious, and she looked away in disgust. Her eyes searched--pleaded--for room three. 

"That's very kind of you, Mr. Burbage," Jarod replied brightly. Parker watched him look in her direction for a moment, smiling with anticipation, and she dreaded the words that were tumbling out his mouth. She pretended not to listen. 

"My wife and I really appreciate your hospitality." 

Parker stopped in her tracks, her heels making a loud skid on the pavement. At that moment she wished she had taken the time to retrieve the weapon that had clanged to the ground in New York City. 

* 

He must have trusted her. He was placing the spare .38, holster and all, in plain view on the dresser below the mirror. Either that, or he had lost his mind. Neither seemed like an appealing option. She hated Jarod's implicit sense of trust almost as much as she hated the insanity she knew he must have been capable of. 

She made her move, ignoring the pain in her arm as she pulled the weapon from in holster and leveled it at the back of my head. 

"Give me a good reason why I shouldn't blow your brains all over those clean sheets." She heard a sound from him: a laugh. Parker cocked the gun to show she was serious, as he obviously thought she was not. "I don't have all day, Jarod." 

It had been almost an hour since her dizziness had fought to control her. Parker thanked her lucky stars Jarod didn't notice her step falter, that the thin carpet managed to muffle the sound of her heels. She was strong now, she was in control. From the next room, as if out of movie fraught with cliches and bad background music, a guest had managed to tote around a record player in the back of their car. She recognized the hints of static over the haunting and yet optimistic piano solo. It was vaguely familiar, but frankly, Parker didn't care. 

"Tchaikovsky," Jarod said in a whisper. 

Parker snorted. "_That's_ your reason for living?" 

He shook his head, still laughing, unable to take the situation seriously. She wanted to advance on him and stick the muzzle of the gun right into the back of his neck. She restrained herself, saving the desire for later. Again, she felt dizzy, and again, her step faltered. 

"Our neighbor is playing Tchaikovsky." Adding, "it's a rather unusual variation, too. Not the Swan Lake or Nutcracker he's famous for." 

Parker was not in the mood for a musical lesson, much less Jarod's preferences when it came to Tchaikovsky. "I've haven't got much patience, Jarod, and frankly," she paused, squeezing her eyes to will the world to remain in focus, "you're not helping matters." 

He began to turn around. "Stay put," she hissed, and he stopped. Parker hated the way he just stood there -- most people with a gun to their head would have at least raised their hands in mock surrender by now, but Jarod remained stock still. 

Parker took the time to survey the room; after all, her goal who been she keenly fixed she hadn't taken the time to take in her surroundings. Maybe it was because she wasn't planning on staying very long. Jarod was facing the room's only bed, which was covered in sheets that were faded and no doubt smelled as musty and used as they looked. Not like Parker intended to stick around and find out. Her back was to the room's singular dresser and mirror; the door was on her right and a dingy, yellow-colored bathroom was to her left. Also to her left was a small table; atop it lay the first sign Jarod had inhabited this place previous to their arrival: his silver Haliburton case lay open on top, various small DSAs littering the table. Parker made a mental note to grab the container and its contents before leaving. 

"Aren't you even the least bit curious?" 

At first she swore he had caught her eyeing the Haliburton, but a quick check revealed he hadn't moved an inch. "About what?" she hissed. 

"About what Lyle said," he said, "why the Centre wants you out of the picture." Jarod paused, and Parker thought she heard immense pain seeping into his voice. "About my family." 

Mentions of Lyle made her face snarl up in disgust. "Babblings of a mad man trying to justify murder," Parker replied. "I've never put much stock in what Lyle says." 

"Even when he speaks the truth?" 

Another wave of dizziness. She gulped, suppressing the darkness tempting itself to overcome her. She leveled gun at Jarod once more, thankful he couldn't see this. "You've got a minute, Jarod. Make it good." 

He paused, thoughtful Parker imagined, trying to frame his plea for life carefully. "Do you remember what your father said to you, right before he jumped out of that plane?" In her mind, she thought back three months, the pain her father's death had caused still raw with guilt and abandonment. "'The new Parker legacy begins with you.'" 

It was becoming increasingly harder to will away the dizziness. "You're not helping your chances, Jarod." 

He was getting passionate now, almost as intent on convincing her of what he said as he was convinced about saving his skin. "What do you suppose he meant, Parker? That you should continue your mother's work, take over the Centre and become its first altruistic chairmen?" The thought seemed to disgust him. "Or was it something else?" 

Jarod turned suddenly, startling her and sending her stepping backward a few times. The jarring movement sent her head spinning, and her efforts to maintain aim on Jarod failed as she rushed to control her balance. For a moment, the entire room was still, as if the world had shifted into a slow-motion action. The worry in Jarod's face barely registered in her mind. 

The sound of the gun hitting the carpet was dull in her head. Parker hardly noticed her sore arm colliding with the floor either. Her last image, groggy and blurry as her mind slipped into unconsciousness, was of Jarod towering over her, an entire lifetime of concern pouring over her. 

And then it was black. 

TBC 


	4. IV

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART FOUR_**

He felt a presence by his side, but neither man said a word. In silence they stood for ages, watching the small child perform tasks beyond his reach. 

The comment pierced the air. "He should have a name." 

Cox regarded the man beside him with bewilderment. Perhaps the man was going soft in his old age. Desperate as he was to jab at the old man's visible weakness, Cox resisted. Repercussions came to those who insulted the chairman. 

"I don't believe that will be beneficial to his development," he replied simply, detached. 

The old man wheezed a little. In the darkness, he couldn't see Cox's eyebrows shoot up in amusement. "True," he began, and paused as the boy -- a mere two years old -- touched the large continent, declaring it 'Africa,' "but we can't exactly call him Baby Parker for the rest of life either." 

Another gesture of amusement from Cox, this time a chuckle. 

The matter was quickly abandoned as others surfaced. "How much longer?" 

Cox stroked the angle of his own jaw. "Another two weeks?" he ventured. "I still have two or three preliminary simulations I want to run him through before transfer. He's showing remarkable progress, especially considering his age, and I imagine he'll acclimate quite nicely." 

"Yes," the old man asserted, pausing in a sense of melodrama Cox detested, "he _is_ special." He noted his use of 'special,' and didn't doubt the observation for a moment. In fact, he would bet his life on it. Perhaps, he thought, it was even...an understatement. 

The darkness of the observation lounge was pierced by the light of a door opening, and a man--a sweeper, Cox guessed--entering. He noted how gingerly he stepped, in hopes that his shoes would not make an unbearable racket. 

"Mr. Raines?" the sweeper asked. 

Raines nodded to Cox and brought the sweeper into a corner of the lounge, near the door. They spoke in hushed tones, and Cox pretended not to listen. Then Raines quietly excused himself from Cox's presence, the beginnings of a smirk playing on Raines' lips. He knew the techs had found him a location, no doubt. 

* 

She was standing outside the nursery of a generic hospital, gazing into the room full of squirming infants barely hours old. An endless variety of blue and pink bonnets covered their heads. She pressed her hand to the window, her fingers splaying across the glass, trying to connect with the small infant in the third row, fifth bassinet from the left. She knew he couldn't hear her, even if she wished she could hear his small whispers in her ear, in her mind. 

"It doesn't work that way," a voice beside her said. It was soft, amused, and it familiarity didn't bother her. "You're trying to too hard, honey." 

Parker glanced at her mother. She hadn't aged a day. It was like looking in a mirror. "I shouldn't even bother," she replied dejectedly. "He can't hear me." 

Instead of inspiring pity, her words made her mother smile. "And what makes you think that?" 

"He's my father's son." She glanced back into the nursery. "Not yours." 

Parker felt her mother's hand massaging her shoulder, and sighed at the pleasure it brought. 

Her mother sighed. "He's neither." Parker looked back at her mother, her reply confusing her, but the 'older' woman would have no such questioning. Instead, she placed her own hand around her daughter, bringing it from the glass to rest over her daughter's heart. "Go to him, baby girl. He needs you now." 

Again a glance was stolen of the nursery. A young pediatric nurse had opened her brother's bassinet and cradled him softly in her arms. "What could I do?" she asked. 

Her mother dropped her hand and retreated back down the hallway she had come from. Parker didn't chase after her as her mother's specter retreated back into the recesses of wherever she lived. Instead, she heard haunting words that seemed to fill every room of the hospital. 

"You could give him the world." 

* 

For a moment Parker was aware she was dreaming, that her body was covered with a warm blanket, and that someone made gentle snoring sounds beside her. But the pain was too great in her head, and she soon lulled back in unconsciousness. 

* 

In his rush the previous night, he had forgotten to shut the drapes on the windows completely, and through the small hole a bright ray of sunlight shone in. It bathed him in light, and roused Jarod from the light and ultimately restless sleep he had managed to catch in the rather uncomfortable chair. He had pulled it closer to the bed, close enough to hear her shallow breaths, close enough to notice if they ceased altogether. 

Jarod stole a glance at the prone Parker. She had barely moved an inch since he had gingerly tucked her under the cover hours earlier. Occasionally, her head lolled side to side, and her lips moved as they murmured some phrase that meant nothing except in her dreams, but for the most part she remained still. After a second, he leaned in close, assuring himself her breathing was sequential and normal. Softly he pulled her right arm from under the cover, checking the bandage. 

The small clock at the corner of his laptop read 7:15 as he booted up the machine. It took a while for the call to connect. 

"Jarod," Major Charles exclaimed, his voice and face still damp with sleep. "We were getting worried." 

Jarod smiled sadly. "I got..." his head turned involuntarily to Parker sleeping soundly, "...there was a little change of plans." Carefully, Jarod maneuvered the laptop so that the computer affixed to the top of it would capture his sleeping visitor. 

Major Charles' recognition was obvious to find. "Is everything all right up there?" 

"After a little minor surgery," Jarod replied, replacing the laptop. His father's worried expression that his son had received injury prompted a further explanation. "I had to remove a bullet from Miss Parker's arm." 

Behind him, she stirred. Jarod knew she was still too far below consciousness to possible have heard her own name, and called the event coincidence. 

"And you're sure there'll be no," his father chose his word carefully, "complications?" 

Jarod knew Charles was not referring to his surgical feat. "That I'm sure of." He left it at simply that. There wasn't enough time for complicated explanations, which was what their situation required. It was hard to explain to his father the sense of implicate trust he held in her, despite their past. To be honest, he wasn't sure if _he_ understand it, really. 

Charles hesitated on his next question. "Have you told her anything?" 

Jarod had meant to. He had meant to tell her everything. But fate had intervened, she had passed out on the floor as the infection spread from her bullet wound. Maybe it was for the better on her part, he mused. The last thing she needed on that day was a possible life-altering revelation. 

His silence on the subject, however, spoke volumes. "You have to," his father urged. 

"I know." Again he glanced at her, repeating, "I know." 

"Oh!" Charles' exclamation brought Jarod back to reality. He watched as his father popped a disk into his hard drive. The action was followed by a prompt on his own machine: would he accept the file transfer? "I almost forgot about these." 

Jarod accepted. "What are they?" 

"Explanations for your friend," he replied. His voice lingered on 'your friend,' unsure how the term applied to his son and his companion. "Taken in Africa over the past week." 

"Taken by whom?" The download was half-complete. 

His father smiled. It was a large grin, the size of which Jarod had seen only once before: the first time he had met Charles. Jarod could only guess what that meant. "That, son," his father said, "you'll learn when you come and see me." 

A prompt alerted him that the photos were done downloading. He quickly located the file, opened it and sent it immediately to the taskbar, yet unwilling to view their contents. 

Jarod smiled in return. "I'll see you in a day or two." 

They exchanged pleasantries, and the conversation ended. 

* 

No one needed to come and retrieve him from his work station. The sound of Raines' oxygen tank in desperate need of an oil job could be heard from yards away. That sound prompted his gaze to linger near the doorway. The man was standing in it, and he merely had to nod to him. The lab tech scurried from his station, document in hand. 

They were bathed in the shadow of a corner office, out of sight and hearing of the busy tech room. "Well?" Raines rasped in a whisper. 

The tech took a deep gulp, handing him the paper. "I traced the call to a rest stop along the Pennsylvania Turnpike." 

"This was hours ago," Raines replied bluntly. "They're gone." 

The lab tech, though temporarily stunned by the man's rebuff, pressed on. "I know, but the station is accessible only from the westbound lanes, making it reasonably to assume they are traveling in that direction. I was always able to ascertain that a dark-haired man bought a full tank of gas and was met by a woman fitting Miss Parker's direction. He," the tech suppressed a chuckle, "thought she might need a strong drink." 

Though interested, Raines' patience was growing thin. "The point?" 

"Calculating how far a car might travel on one tank of gas, I was able to narrow down their next destination." Adding with hesitation, "assuming, of course, they stay on the Turnpike." The tech didn't want to fathom the repercussions that might come to him if that assumption was wrong. 

Raines' attention was piqued. "Here's the interesting part," the tech said. "On a hunch, I searched the area's newspaper articles. I found one story detailing the arrest of a local politician for the kidnapping of a college student, prompted by the girl's criminology professor." The tech paused for a bit of drama, knowing the insertion of a prized Centre asset would tip the scales for Raines. "Dr. Jarod Flemming." 

Raines' reaction wasn't what he suspected. The man was hardly stunned; in fact, the tech thought he might have already known of the Pretender's involvement in the disappearance of Miss Parker. Instead, Raines placed a heavy hand on the tech's shoulder, and started to smile. The expression was frightening. 

"You've done well," Raines complimented. Leaning close, he added, "I won't forget that." 

Then he was gone. No doubt summoning sweepers to the location he had marked on the sheet of paper. 

* 

Jarod and Parker sat next to each other on the rumpled bed. Her hair was a mess, matted in some places and standing on end in others. Her clothes were creased and rumpled, the seam of her white shirt torn open. A fresh bandage had been placed over her wound, which was now "professionally" cleaned and sewn up. The bullet had been removed. 

Waking up had been surprisingly easier than Jarod had expected. She hadn't fought much, as much as he would expect from an exhausted woman like Parker, and the mood of surrender had been a comfort. Twice he had caught her gaze lingering on the weapon lying again alone on the dresser, and he learned to tuck the gun in the waist of his pants. If she ever got that close, there were other issues that probably should be worked out first. 

The silence between them was unbearable. Parker couldn't help but eye the photos turned face down in Jarod's lap. They were inviting; she craved to know whose image they had captured, what dirty little Centre secret their shades of grey held. Who was doing something they weren't supposed to be doing? What new horror had the Centre dragged from its closet to become the future of the corporation? Parker's mind drifted back to her dream, and her mother's request. She shuddered at the thought. 

"You know..." he said, his quiet whisper thundering through the heavy silence. He paused, hesitating; Parker couldn't recall the last time a simple silence had rendered him so speechless. 

Finally, he gathered his voice, and his eyes were looking tenderly at her. They were filled with worry and pity, sorrow and joy, gazing into her soul. She hated that look; she could never quite get it out of her mind. "I don't have to show you these if you don't want to see them." 

Her hand made a grab for the thin pile, but he quickly flinched, pulling them from her grasp. Her bandage rubbed against his arm, sending a rather dull wave of pain through her for a moment. 

She stared at her lap, her hands folded neatly and her fingers looping around one another. "I have to," she whispered. 

Parker heard him sigh, and looked straight ahead, unable to meet his eyes should he seek out hers again. The guilt was building up inside her already, threatening to explode. She felt the pile's edges pricking at her folded hands, and recognized he was giving the black-and-white photos to her. Shutting her eyes for a moment, she turned them up, rifling through each one. 

One by one they fell to the floor. Her grasp was unable to steady them and they floated quietly down, not making a sound as they hit the carpet. She didn't really notice, she didn't really care. 

It wasn't possible. 

Her chest heaved with a sob, her mouth quickly covering her mouth to bottle the escaping sound. She succeeded for the most part, but her defensive breakdown was obvious: the sting of a warm salty tear began at her eye and traveled down her cheek. Parker felt the tender pressure of a hand on her leg, reassuring and comforting. No doubt he had expected this, and it bugged to her to no end. 

"B-b-b-but..." She was stuttering, making herself look like a fool as her emotions overcame her. This was too much, too much for her life and too much even for the Centre. "How?" she finally managed. 

The question hung between them. Parker wondered if Jarod even knew anything of the photographs he possessed. She gave into the urge to turn, to see his reaction: his eyes showed signs of pink puffiness. Apparently he did not. He knew nothing. Parker sighed, somehow feeling worse and better at the same time. 

Jarod gulped. "We have to leave soon." His voice betrayed the calm exterior he was portraying, instead revealing the emotion beneath him. "By now they've already estimated our position. We should get going." 

Jarod had risen from the bed, moving towards the dresser to gather the medical supplies and Haliburton that were arranged neatly on the top, but Parker remained still. She made no effort to retrieve the fallen photos. She knew Jarod intended to escape to a safe house, where she knew not, but for some reason she could explain...she trusted his motives. He had had sense enough to show her those photographs that lay abandoned on the carpet, which indicated he knew the reaction they would stir. 

Perhaps, she thought, he means to provide me the answers he cannot give. 

They were gone before Mr. Burbage came to remind them of their complementary breakfast in the motel lobby. 

* 

The moment the limos and the towncars and the sweepers pulled into the small Pennsylvania motel parking lot, he knew they were gone. 

He found the photos lying abandoned near the bed with the crumpled sheets that no one had bothered to fix before they left. Some had turned over as they floated down, their images pressed up against the carpet, but one upturned was enough to startle Cox. 

He rifled through them much as he expected their previous holder had. He noticed the time stamp, dating back only a week. Could such dates be forged? It would have been useful in this situation. 

Sweepers filed in, as did the distinct sound of an oxygen tank. 

"What did you find?" Raines rasped. 

Cox spun, handing the five photos to the old man. "A dead man," he replied simply. 

Regarding the photos, Raines' hand clenched in frustration around the first image, crumpling it where he grasped it. "This is not possible." 

"But it is," Cox said, the hint of a smile on his lips, as he gestured to the photos. "Ever the more reason to speed up the transfer." 

Raines handed the photos off to a sweeper with an order to track down their origins, keeping one of them for himself. "You said so yourself that there were still simulations to be completed." 

"Exigent circumstances have forced me to," he smiled now, "reevaluate my assessment. I now declare the boy fit for transfer." 

The look of success was evident on Raines' face. The small hurdle he held in his hands was nothing to bar him from enjoying the small success they had achieved. "When this is over, Cox, I shall make you a very important man. I know you're fond of the boy, but perhaps you could divide your attention between him and, say," he paused, "Centre liaison to the Triumvirate." 

Cox tried to appear unimpressed. "Sir, wasn't that possession expected to be held by your son?" 

The thought of Lyle's failure in New York danced across Raines' face, but the dim event soon faded as the old man smiled sadly. "My son will have to earn my trust just like everyone else. Provided," he added, "he lives through the week." 

The sweepers stayed another hour, interrogating the motel manager, but nothing was accomplished. The fact remained that no one had seen the pair leave, no one knew what direction they were traveling. So they waited patiently for another bread crumb to drop. 

Inside the motel room, the image of Mr. Parker lay abandoned once more on the table, beads of sweat dotting his greytone forehead. 

TBC 


	5. V

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART FIVE_**

In December she had buried an empty coffin in place of her father. How ironic, she thought, as they lowered the weighted casket into the hole in a plot next to her mother's empty grave. Her father. She had turned the hollow phrase over in her brain as she stood at the podium on that cold and dreary day, her eyes finding a sickly man in the front. Her uncle...her father? Even the words etched on his headstone, which arrived a week later, bore the lie he had lived and perpetuated for years: 'Father, Husband, Friend.' 

The affair had been a small one; her father had been a fallen man, and not many in the Centre chose to ally themselves with a fallen man. She had watched those who had had a hand in her father's choice to jump hide their joy beyond tears and grief-stricken expressions. Not more than a week after her ordeal, her body still showed the signs of snow, cold, lies and truths, and Parker hid behind sunglasses and a rather large hat. Quiet she sat in the front row as her brother spoke, his words hardly registering in her brain. She refused to shed a tear as the mourners threw dirt on the empty coffin; she simply stared straight ahead, unmoving, unbelieving. 

After the others had paid their respects, hallow as they may have been, Parker lingered near the empty ground. There was no body to recover, no body to dress, mourn, and bury. The chances, numerous people had reminded her, and finding her father's body in one piece were slim to none. She had lowered her eyes and her mind retreated to the dark thought of Mr. Parker's corpse slowly being gnawed on by fish big and small. She had felt the tear pooling in the crevice were her sunglasses (despite the overcast skies) met her face. It was warm on her face, and she brushed it off with the conviction that it would freeze on her face if it didn't. Parker wouldn't admit to herself that her father's devotion to a daughter devoid of human weakness (feelings and emotions) had outlived him. 

Walking to the car, she noticed the lone figure by the tree. Not stopping, she recognized him, made eye contact. There was a hesitation in her step, a fault only she noticed...and then she moved on. Parker had kept walking. Oh, how easy it could have been to stop, nod to one of the dozens of sweepers and cleaners and Centre personnel about the cemetery, and the Centre's prized possession would be theirs again. But she only kept walking. 

In the car heading back to her home, her mind tried to collect what was left of the Parker family tree. Her mother was dead. Her father was dead and replaced by another. Her brother had made it clear that he would rather ally himself with the winning faction, which, of course, did not include her. Her little brother, less than a week after his birth, had been whisked away to a secret location; to do what she knew not what, and she feared to think of the possibilities. Ethan was no doubt in hiding, under the protective custody of Jarod's father, who had made it clear he did not wish for her to interfere with the situation. She had to admit that Sydney, Broots and Debbie, and, sadly, Jarod, were as close to a real family as she would ever get. 

And now? The scenery hadn't changed for over a day, and onward Jarod drove, further and further south to a destination unknown. Not surprisingly, they hadn't exchanged much in the way of conversation. Parker began to wonder if Jarod's destination included somewhere in the heart of Texas, considering all the remote states he was passing up. Unlike their first stay, pleasantries had hardly been exchanged as they checked into the hotel room after a day of driving. They spoke long enough to decide who was sleeping where, and what time they would leave. Then quietly and defiantly, Parker had shut the light off and stayed awake the entire night. After an hour she heard Jarod's gentle snores, much like she had as she had dodged in and out of consciousness, and felt the need to kick him. How could he sleep at a time like this? 

What sleep Parker did manage to catch was once again in between toll booths and rest stops. Each time her mind would slowly fade to black and for a few moments she would linger in a peaceful sleep. Then suddenly her father was there, his very undead eyes staring back at her through the black and white photo. She would jolt awake, Jarod would glance at her in concern, and then continue driving. The pattern continued all the way to the Texas border. 

There was a voice in her head, one her father had planted there over twenty years ago, that told her not to trust Jarod. Those photos could be fake, it whispered with malice. This could all be a trap. The sun was setting, but the last rays illuminated Jarod's face from time to time, giving him the appearance of an angel. In that moment of illumination she saw there was no room in Jarod's heart for that kind of deception. 

_ The rope was wrapped tight around her arms, her chest, her waist, her legs. Her back was pressed flat against the cold metal pole, and the temperature sent chills up her spine. Her hair was matted against it. She was vulnerable, exposed, weak, and it killed her inside. _

He still had the flare gun tucked in his waistband. "Why did you save my life?" she asked, quiet and pleading, and still inherently defiant. By now she had expected to be lying in a pool of her own blood. 

Jarod leaned close, so close Parker could smell a pungent combination of sweat, rain, and aftershave. Together it was repulsive and alluring. She tried in vain to find the evil in his eyes her father had assured her was there, but to her surprise she found only worry. As if he regretted tying her, his nemesis and hunter, to a pole in the middle of a hurricane. 

Outside, the storm raged savagely. Rain pelted the glass windows, shutters banged on metal siding, tree limbs snapped or scrapped against the sides of buildings. The sound was all around them, and yet removed. 

"Because," he answered, the memory flickering in his brain, "I still the little girl," he hesitated, "who gave me my first kiss." 

His smile was genuine. Her eyes filled with sorrow as they watched him exit into the raging hurricane. 

In the setting sun a light rain had begun to fall. Parker leaned her cheek against the glass window, its coolness refreshing against her skin. The memory floated away quietly, and she shut her eyes again. 

* 

Faded photos kept Sydney company in his empty office. A small desk lamp provided the only light in the room; the dark was shut and the blinds had been drawn to both the hallway and the outside world. In his fingers he flipped the pen randomly, trying to discern some pattern to his behavior. But it served no purpose, other than to supplement his own wandering mind. His mind was full of worry for Miss Parker, and for Jarod, as well. Suddenly the danger for them both was equal in strength. 

It had been two days since his abbreviated conversation with Parker, but what he feared most was not the Centre's technicians rapidly closing in on the pair of fugitives, but the bickering between them. Their chemistry was extreme and quite volatile, even at a young age, and this volatility scared Sydney more than anything. Raines had once commented harshly that Miss Parker's introduction into Jarod's life brought out the mischievous side of the young pretender, the side that would rather play and reek havoc than work and complete simulations. 

_ "Her presence is unhealthy for Jarod," Raines said, taking a drag from his cigarette and glancing in through the two-way mirror. The children sat across from each other at a table, deep in conversation. "Contact must be strictly limited." _

Sydney shook his head. "I've said this before, Raines," he began, "and I'll say it again: what's unhealthy is isolating Jarod from human contact. He can't be expected to bond with the subjects in his simulations if he's not allowed to see other human beings." 

Raines smiled. "He has you." Sydney heard the unveiled malice in the doctor's voice. It was no secret Raines resented him simply for his unfettered access -- and trust -- to Jarod. 

The doctor was shaking his head again. "Three times this month I've caught Miss Parker exiting the ventilation ducts on SL-13. Needless to say, the Chairman is not pleased." 

Sydney spun on Raines. "You told Mr. Parker?" she shouted. "Are you *trying* to undermine my work, Raines?" 

"I had to," he replied in his own pathetic defense. Adding, "Besides, if I remember correctly, you were one of the only backers of Miss Parker's addition to Jarod's routine, and I do recall you agreeing to accept full responsibility of the possible consequences, both positive and negative." It was Raines' way of delivering a veiled threat. 

Seeing the flustered expression of the psychiatrist's face, Raines smiled and blew a thin cloud of smoke in his face. 

Sydney and Broots had been about a block behind Lyle's sweeper team, maybe less, in New York City, but had missed the action completely. The suits had pushed them back as they wheeled Lyle away, back to the renewal wing in Blue Cove, but not before Sydney could see the scene in the alley. There was a pool of blood - Lyle's blood -- on the ground by the wall...and a smear that was decidedly not from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The logical conclusion was that it was Parker's blood, which would mean the first shot he had heard had been Lyle firing at Parker. She hadn't, however, mentioned a wound in their short exchange. 

The questions swirled in Sydney's head. Where were they headed? How prepared was Jarod? Did Miss Parker realize what was going on? Did Jarod? If he did, how did he find out? What missing piece to the equation did Jarod have and Miss Parker desire? There was always a missing piece between them, Sydney thought. 

There was a hesitant rap on his closed office door. Startling him from his thoughts, he quietly beckoned in the only visitor who he imagine matched the sound. Broots quietly shut the door, afraid a large sound might trigger some sort of unwanted attention. 

"Did you find anything?" Sydney asked expectantly. 

Broots hesitated. "I-I-I-I'm not sure." 

Whereas Parker would have snapped, Sydney sighed softly. "Go on." 

Broots glanced nervously around the room, expecting a monitor of some sort, and quickly took the seat in front of Sydney's desk. His voice lowered to a whisper. "I was able to locate some information in one of the Centre databases regarding the," he hesitated around the word, "hit on Miss Parker. It's an old database, one that's mostly storage of old files from the Nixon era." 

"Someone wanted to hide," Sydney pondered. 

Broots nodded. "Exactly. Which is why I'm not sure if I understand everything clearly." 

"What do you mean?" 

He paused. "If it's correct, then the hit was ordered over three months ago. Right after-" 

Sydney cut in. "-Mr. Parker's funeral." Adding, "Any particular reason why they waited so long?" 

"I've found references to surveillance files, both video and audio. I'm thinking they've bugged Miss Parker's home and office." He paused. "The information I found were simple transcripts of email, encoded but not that hard to break. The surveillance files, on the other hand..." 

The doctor smiled. "You're working as hard as you can, Broots. No one is complaining." 

His eyes found his lap. "Miss Parker would," he replied with a halfhearted smile. "It's strange," Broots said. "I never in a million years thought I'd hear myself say this, but...I miss her, Sydney." 

Sydney nodded solemnly. "I do, too." 

After a moment in silence, Broots got up to leave, but hesitated as he reached for the doorknob. The small man turned back to face Sydney, his face washed in worry and confusion. "It doesn't make sense, Sydney. Why put an order out in December and then wait three months? That doesn't sound like Centre efficiency." 

The question loomed between them. The doctor knew the answer, however painful it was to stomach. 

"Maybe," he began, trying to frame his answer carefully, "it was efficient for a different reason. After all, Miss Parker leads the team in charge of the Centre's priority number one, and Mr. Raines made it quite clear that bringing Jarod back was a matter of life and death for her and her brother. Perhaps Lyle felt...conventional methods weren't working." 

The answer registered in Broots' mind. His face twisted in disgust. "Lyle would do that? Use Miss Parker as bait to reel Jarod in?" He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the thought. 

"In a heartbeat," Sydney replied solemnly. He knew full well the malice and evil Lyle was capable of, and selling his sister to the devil was low on that ladder. "And I doubt he would get much opposition from the Tower. Mr. Parker was her last hope, Broots. The others aren't as tolerable with her inability as her father was." 

Broots found his way back to the chair, slumping into it. "The surveillance: I bet Lyle was trying to see how often Miss Parker was contacted and failed to report it. He was tracking them both like animals." 

Sydney imagined Lyle, fully recovered, standing in the doorway and sneering. 'Who's the hunter now?' he would rasp, laughing maniacally to himself. 

* 

She had fallen for Jarod's deception once again, and inwardly she was happy she had. Their diversion from an expected course might throw the sweepers tailing her off course for a few days, giving her and Jarod ample time to... 

Parker looked out the airplane window at the ever-approaching ground below. To do what, exactly--escape? The idea of being on the run with Jarod made her shudder. 

An hour and a half into Texas the black sports car had driven off the road suddenly, jerking Parker from her restless sleep. In the dead of night the car stopped, and Jarod ordered her out. For a brief second, she feared what he was planning to do next. Instead, with humidity still clinging to the air around them, they began to walk a path that seemed miles long, but could have only been feet. She had been in constant motion, in some form or another, for almost three days, and she was exhausted. Each step took the energy of ten or fifteen. She didn't need to remind herself of how utterly inappropriate her choice of footwear was for damp grass. 

Jarod had banged on the door to the flight manager's office, who had also been roused from a brief nap in front of television playing reruns of _The Price is Right_. Parker should have expected the smile of familiarity on the man's face, no doubt another lonely soul who had been rescued by Jarod's aberrant sense of justice. At the late hour she didn't dare speculate on the circumstances. Instead she was a spectator as the two negotiated a "loan" (as Jarod later called it) of a small twin-engine plane. After the deal had been worked out, the man had nodded a kind goodbye to Parker and retreated back into his office. She never uttered a word. 

They had been in the air for almost an hour before anyone broke the foreboding silence between them. It almost seemed to crackle with potential energy. 

"Where are we going?" she asked. 

He turned for a moment, regarding with a coy smile, almost as if he was contemplating whether or not to tell the truth. The expression inspired annoyance in Parker. "Colorado," he answered simply. 

"What's in Colorado?" she prodded. 

He took a moment to think, then answered, "Answers, I hope." 

Hope. The feeling was not in vast quantities in the airplane's cabin. In the distance, the sun was beginning to rise behind the plane, and the dim light from the horizon lit the ground below them. Evidently, they had been flying through a large mass of clouds, as the landing strip suddenly came into view out her window. Parker felt the plane turn to the right, and watched the airfield grow in size. 

Unconsciously, her eyes slipped shut and her breath caught in her throat as the plane skidded to a stop along the runway. 

No one came to greet them. Jarod taxied the airplane along the runway for several feet, and Parker looked expectantly out the window, assuming another one of Jarod's friends would wave to them from hanger, indicating where they might park. But no one came. It occurred to Parker that their plane seemed to be the only activity along the airstrip, even for the early morning air. Actually, as her eyes passed over the considerable layer of rust and general air of disuse, Parker wondered how long it had been since anyone had landed here. 

"Where the hell are we?" Parker asked. 

She had expected a witty answer from Jarod regarding their location, such as 'Colorado,' but what she wasn't prepared for was the grim look she got instead. With a heavy sigh, he exited the plane. His ignorance of her question infuriated her. Forgetting the bandage on her still-tender wound, Parker slammed her own door shut, running around the nose of the plane and coming inches from Jarod's face. 

"I _asked_ you a question, Lab Rat," Parker hissed. The derogatory name slid off her tongue like satin, covered in malice. It felt good. Her voice punctuated the silence of the deserted airfield around them. "Where are we?" She made sure to annunciate each word, every syllable. Oh, she thought, what she wouldn't give for her weapon at a time like this. She imagined sticking it under Jarod's chin, threatening to pull the trigger. 

Jarod pursed his lips in defiance. "The Centre's now-abandoned Colorado installation." 

Parker snorted, stepping back and turning to gaze at the empty surroundings. In the near distance she saw buildings with no visible entrances, all uniform and quite foreboding. None of the structures were particular desuetude or decrepit, but it was quite obvious no one had inhabited the site for some time. 

She spun on him, her eyes wild with revelation. "The Centre doesn't _have_ a Colorado Installation, Jarod," she spat. 

"Officially, they never did," he retorted. Then he retreated to the storage cabin of the plane, pulling the Haliburton and the duffel bag from the compartment. As he moved, Parker swore she saw an amused smile play on Jarod's lips. She wished she could wipe away all traces of that expression. As he worked he continued to speak. "When their work was completed almost three years ago, they abandoned the installation permanently." 

"'They'?" she asked, moving closer to the baggage compartment. "What work?" 

He looked into her eyes, his face sincere and completely serious. "Genetic research. For what or on who I don't know." 

Parker tilted her head to the side. "And I suppose you're going to find out, aren't you?" When he didn't reply, she pressed on. "While I'd love to uncover more of the Centre's dirty secrets, I'm slightly more interested in finding out why my brother intended on shooting me two days ago." 

The comment flustered Jarod. The duffel bag slipped off his shoulder as he moved towards her, thudding silently on the pavement. He grabbed her shoulder -- her unscratched one -- for emphasis, and she wriggled a bit under his tight grasp. The movement had startled her. "You just don't get it, do you, Parker?" Jarod asked. "The research in those buildings, what happened in New York City, it's all connected. I have reason to believe your mother visited here several times before she," Jarod was unsure how to phrase the words to describe the day in question, "died." 

"Says _who_?" she hissed. Suddenly, they were ten year olds again. 

He paused, collecting himself. "Says the same person who took those pictures of your father." The mention of her father halted Parker's protests. She stopped moving, but Jarod wasn't finished. His mouth froze in a half-open position, his breath catching in his throat. In a moment, he composed himself, releasing his hand from Parker's arm when he realized the tight grasp he had had on her. She kneaded the spot for effect. 

"I," he began, but stopped. Then, "I believe the person who contacted my father was..." 

His breath caught again, and Parker suddenly saw tiny beads of moisture forming in his tear ducts. She bowed her head. 

"...my mother." 

Her head snapped up. "Are you sure?" she asked. 

Jarod nodded several times, then stepped away, his face showing a level of contentment unexpected for the moment. Obviously he had already dealt with this issue, and was now ready to move forward. He was a few paces ahead of her -- she still stood completely still -- and stopped. 

He turned and extended his arm in her direction, palm up and open and beckoning her hand. It was a pointless gesture, as the flat pavement was hardly rocky and such that it required that they stay close to each other. Instead, it was a gesture of truce. 

"Coming?" he asked. 

TBC 


	6. VI

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART SIX_**

Raines reclined in the Chairman's desk chair, enjoying for a moment the sweet taste of power. For years he had worked for this position, fought tooth and nail to eliminate whatever obstacles might come his way. Mr. Parker's temptation by the Scrolls had been a blessing in disguise: though it had soured relations with the Triumvirate on the eve of his power transfer, it had given Raines a means to retrieve the power that came with a position he deserved above all else. He was the one who had given his all making sure the Centre stayed afloat in the 1970s, and it was he who had spearheaded the project that be the Centre's rebirth. Mr. Parker's involvement had be chance, and minute in importance. 

The black-and-white photograph lay unassuming on the Chairman's--no, _his_--desk. How sweet a possession to be marred by such an item. The best eyes had been over this photo, and the best eyes had assured him that if it were a fake, it was a damn good one. No way in hell the time stamp in the corner was inaccurate. Raines shared with himself a private chuckle at the resilience of the Parker name: both Catherine and her husband faked their own deaths, and their daughter had barely escaped with hers. Even he, himself, had cheated death in more ways than one. Only baby brother Lyle in the Renewal Wing stood to shatter the family's vibrant health. 

In actuality, his existence was severely compromising to Raines' top priority: the boy. While he lived Mr. Parker had been extremely hesitant to admit his son into the program, and his reappearance on the eve of the boy's transfer only heightened Raines' nerves. The last thing he needed was Mr. Parker trotting in parental precedent and yanking the boy out once and for all. The fact that he remained the only soul alive who had read the scrolls made Raines' compliance with the old man's wishes mandatory. 

Raines sighed. Mr. Parker had stumbled upon the secret installation God knows how, but the fact remained that somehow he had managed to use his daughter to his advantage, blackmailing Raines and Cox into letting him participate. He had made a show of it, going so far as to set up the charade of a marriage and impending fatherhood to impress his daughter. In hindsight, of course, Raines realized it had been Mr. Parker's last attempt to brand something with the Parker name, even if he was merely the surrogate father. Despite his best efforts, Raines knew the charade had only raised his daughter's suspicions even further, and the recent appearances of Broots and Sydney at the bodily fluid storage area on SL-15 confirmed that. 

He made a decision. His finger hovered over the call button, about to make connection to the Triumvirate station in Africa to monitor their progress, when the small light below his finger lit up. It was quickly accompanied by a crude buzz. Within seconds, he answered it, and the chipper voice on the other end only served to further his annoyance. 

"Sir, there's a call from Africa for you." 

He sighed. "Put him through." 

After a moment, another light lit up, indicating the call had been successfully forwarded. 

"My good friend," Raines wheezed, "I was just about to call." 

"Indeed you were," the voice on the other replied. "We have a situation over here." 

"The boy?" Raines guessed, worried. His next choice would have been Mr. Parker. He had, after all, noticed the beads of sweating forming on his brow in the photograph. 

"Not quite," the voice said. "We have reason to believe the perimeter of the Colorado Installation has been compromised." 

The statement startled him. He sat upright in the chair, its hinges creaking with the sound movement. "You assured me three years ago we would never have this conversation." 

Raines swore he heard the man smile. After a moment, he said, "Word is you've got a," his lips paused to wrap around the word mockingly, "situation over there. Perhaps the two incidences are related?" 

"Perhaps," Raines hissed. 

"I trust you will handle this situation properly, Mr. Raines," the voice commanded. 

"Of course," he replied. "And I can assure you this will not affect the transfer." 

"I'll hold you personally responsible if it does." 

The voice ended the telephone call. Before dispatching a team to Colorado, Raines slammed his fists on the desk in anger. 

* 

She should have known the abandoned airplane hanger was anything but. After taking a moment to rearrange the duffel slung over his shoulder, Jarod grabbed the rusted handle on the door and pulled it open. It squeaked terribly, and small bits of dust flew out from between the door and its frame. The sound was all around them, and Parker crinkled her nose in disgust. 

"Jarod, what the..." She didn't finish. "Oh, my God," she gasped. 

Inside she had hardly expected to find airplane, but she hadn't expected what she saw. There were birthing tables everywhere, some of them attached to rusted shackles to prevent screaming mothers from escaping as their children were forcibly brought into the world. In a corner were abandoned plastic tubes which, at this distance and given the other surroundings, could have been incubators. Parker glanced at the ground, finding it covered in dust. Goose bumps formed on her skin, her body's reaction to the still-cool morning air. Hardly a sterile environment for childbirth, she thought. 

Jarod purposely strode toward a door in the far left-hand corner, but Parker lingered behind, turning as she walked, needing to take in every detail of her surroundings. Clouds of dust hung in the rays on sunlight cascading in the window high above the ground. Save for their footsteps on the concrete, the hanger was deathly silent. 

Parker stopped near a crouched Jarod, who was searching in the duffel bag for something. Her eyes scanned the doorway, finding it locked by some sort of access portal. No doubt he was searching for his tool to override the system, she thought. Provided the system had been deactivated after this installation became useless. There was a panel to the left of the doorway, dust clinging to its surface, obscuring the words she could make out underneath it. She raised her hand, feeling its cool temperature, and brushed away the grime in a cloud of dust. 

_PROMETHEUS INSTALLATION  
INFORMATION STORAGE CORRIDOR  
Level 5 Clearance  
Authorized Personnel Only_

"Prometheus," she muttered to herself, "stole fire from Mt. Olympus." 

Jarod stood up and looked at her, and for that moment, their eyes met and they were silent. Jarod opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but something stopped him inside. Parker felt it, too. This was a key, she could feel it in every bone in her body, this was a key to everything they both sought to answer. After a pause he looked back at the contraption in his hands, and began to move to the door. 

Her eyes caught on the access portal, recognizing it for a moment. "Centre security stopped commissioning facilities using that," she said, motioning towards the panel Jarod was now affixing the device to, "almost four years ago. They were too easy to crack." She sighed, thinking that this disadvantage would suddenly be useful to them. 

He glanced at the device, which had attacked itself to access panel. A singular green lit on its back lit up, no doubt indicating the search for the proper access code. "I guess the doctors here had more important things on their minds," Jarod replied. 

"What could be more important than up-to-date security?" 

Jarod didn't answer, only glared deep into her eyes. His unspoken answer was, of course, 'you know exactly why.' In her embarrassment, she glanced at the ground, uncomfortable by his prying stare. Maybe she did know... 

His voice was gentle. It was unfit to the seriousness of their situation. "Go ahead, Parker. Ask away." 

"What?" 

"You're dying to know why we're here," Jarod replied. 

Parker shook her head, pursing her lips. Her patience was running thin. "I don't 'get it,' remember?" 

There was silence between them, as Jarod fought hard to let the remark lay where it might. After a moment, he replied, "I've found evidence to suggest that Prometheus is the third of a triad of projects commissioned by the Triumvirate in the early 1970s. Their singular task was to learn all they could about newly acquired research regarding the human genome." 

"What were the other two?" Parker asked, secretly dreading the answer as well. 

Jarod took a deep breath, stepping closer to her. "I think you know." 

She opened her mouth to reply, but a small beep from the device on the control panel interrupted her. Jarod sighed, squeezing his eyes shut, and Parker almost swore he was almost sad to hear the interruption. Something else was going on, she knew it. There was something he wasn't telling her, one key piece of information he had failed to disclose, and not from lack of appropriate time. He was holding back, and Parker was determined to get to the bottom of it. 

But then she stopped. No doubt whatever lay behind the steel door were secrets someone had taken great pains to hide. For once in her life, she hesitated in her desire to step through and see the truth. Jarod had revealed that her mother had visited Prometheus in 1970, and by all accounts, had "died" several weeks later. Parker knew her mother had involved herself in something sinister--Project Mirage--and for the first time since her arrival, she wondered if the two things could be related. 

Mirage...Parker couldn't get the project--or the DSA of her mother's murder--out of her head. At its inception, the in-vitro fertilization technology used in the insemination of Catherine's egg was cutting edge genetic research. The first mainstream "test tube baby" wasn't conceived until almost ten years later, making Ethan's birth both a miracle (by conventional medical standards) and an everyday occurrence (by Centre standards). It was like cloning a human being in the twenty-first century, just as the world was beginning to grasp the impact of stem cell research... 

'Their singular task was to learn all they could about newly acquired research regarding the human genome.' 

"Oh, my God," Parker muttered yet again. 

Jarod spun around. "What?" 

"The other two projects," she managed. "Mirage. And...Gemini." He said nothing to answer her, only nodded his head in solemn agreement. 

Her next question should have been expected. "What's Prometheus?" When he didn't answer, she rephrased the question, her voice more forceful than before. "_Who_ is Prometheus, Jarod?" In the back of her mind was a small voice, urging her to think about her question, to search within her. It told her she knew the answer. Still, Jarod's silence peeved her -- she needed to be force-fed the answer. "Answer me, dammit!" she yelled. Her voice bellowed and echoed in the empty hanger. 

Inside her, she knew the answer, and it killed her. Everything within her began to teeter, eating away her emotion control like acid through metal. Parker felt herself slipping, felt her tear ducts in her eyes beginning to fill. Desperate to save face she bowed her head, staring at the ground, hoping and praying the gap in her armor wasn't as blatantly obvious as it felt. She felt his shadow entering her personal space, and she sniffed her nose to keep herself under wraps. She pretended he wasn't there, and pretended she was stronger than she felt. 

Parker felt his arms on her shoulders. They were heavy, and yet they weren't. In her head, she knew--hell, she _felt_ it in every bone of her body--that he knew she knew. "I," he began than stopped. The stutter reminded her of the patented hesitancy she inspired in Broots. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry." 

"I can't do it," she whispered. 

"Do what?" 

Parker looked up at him, her eyes wide. "I can't walk through that door." Adding, "I won't." 

Jarod thought a moment before asking quietly, "Why not?" 

"Because!" she spat, pushing away from his attempt at a tender embrace. His approach of trying to tenderly illicit information from her reminded her of something Sydney might try, and it pissed it off. "Frankly, I don't think I can handle one more piece of the Centre's freak show they call scientific research!" 

The remark stung Jarod. She knew he was considered part of that 'freak show,' and his pain only fed her anger. He said nothing. 

"What are the chances that anything I find in that storage facility is going to make my life that much more bearable?" She waved her arms to illustrate her point, stumbling slightly as she did. She felt the crack in her well-being slowly growing larger and larger. "Zip!" 

She felt drunk with the anger and waves of sadness that were flowing over her. "Let's take a running total of the members of my family the Centre has personally made living hells of their lives, shall we?" She took a step closer to Jarod, pointing her finger at him and wagging it in emphasis with each name. "My mother," pause, "my father," pause, "Ethan," tears welling up, "my baby brother..." 

She stopped, bowing her head again. Her rant, it seemed, had reached its end as her emotional upheaval began to get the better of him. "My baby brother..." she repeated, her voice a whisper and riddled with sadness, "he doesn't even have a name, Jarod." 

That did it. The emotion she had pent up for three days -- her brother's attempt on her life, the gunshot wound to her arm, being on the run with Jarod -- came crashing through the Berlin Wall in her brain. Tears came pouring out the size of softballs it seemed, one endless stream after another. It racked her body and she shuddered with each sob. Somehow Jarod managed to gather her in his arms, encasing her in a ring of temporary safety. Her head was pressed against his chest and shoulders, and she felt his chin resting on the top of his chin. Several times she made out Jarod's reassuring voices over her sobs. 

She wasn't sure how long they stood there like that -- for her it seemed like forever. Together they embraced, long after Parker's tears had run out. And then suddenly, as strange as it had begun, their embrace was awkward. In one motion she pulled away, stealing a glance at Jarod before finding the ground suddenly a very interesting thing to study. Her dominant personality was starting to assert itself again, pushing her weaker emotional side back into the small hole it belonged in. She hated crying, hated showing how weak she could be, and Jarod was last person she ever wanted to sob in front of. 

She raised her head to speak, and watched him do the same thing. 

"I..." she began. 

"Miss Parker..." he said at the same time. 

Their error made her smile for a moment, and she was quickly shaking her head. She was living a cliche, she thought. Parker waited for Jarod to complete whatever he had meant to say earlier, but as she watched his eyes dart towards the access portal, she realized he had no intention of elaborating. 

"We should head inside," he suggested. 

Parker took a deep breath, knowing she wouldn't know what to expect beyond the doors, and nodded in approval. 

* 

The underground installation was one long tunnel with several branches off leading to treatment facilities and data storage areas. Pressed against one wall, he assumed the role of his son's proverbial light at the end of tunnel. Tucked into his waistband was a weapon he hoped never to use; in his hand, a flashlight. For now, of course, he didn't need it. 

He looked through the glass in the door and saw faint beams of light coming from the far end of the tunnel. Jarod, he breathed as he strained to guess how far they might be. It was too hard to tell. 

For now, all he could do was wait. 

* 

Raines sat quietly, contemplating. It was the fugitive pair who had breached the thinning security at the Colorado installation--of this he was most certainly sure--that weighed heavily on his mind. The implications of even their presence at the facility could not only contaminate the specimens stored there, but jeopardize the very operation itself. There was no doubt in his mind that this situation was to be handled any other way besides "properly." While he would have preferred that no one ever learn of the facility, the last thing he wanted was yet another Parker stumbling upon its many secrets. 

He pressed the speed-dial on the Chairman's telephone. After a minute, the familiar answered, "Cox." 

"I need you to freeze the transfer for twenty-four hours, Doctor," Raines breathed. 

There was a pause, a silence of indignation, before Cox answered. "I'm not sure if I can _do_ that, sir. We've already prepped the boy-" 

"There's been a breach," Raines cut him off, "at the Colorado installation." 

Another silence, this one different from the first. Raines thought he heard the doctor swear under his breath. "When?" he asked. 

"About 30 minutes ago," Raines answered. "I've sent a sweeper team to handle the situation." Adding, "Don't worry, Doctor--I only want to hold him overnight, until everything has been cleared up. I'd hate for those two to stall this deal." 

Cox caught Raines' message. "Are we sure it was them?" 

"Positive." 

"And our benefactors in Africa, are they," he chose his word carefully, "aware of the present situation?" 

"Of course," Raines replied. What he failed to tell Cox -- that it had been Africa that had detected the breach -- wouldn't and shouldn't hamper his response to the situation. 

It didn't take much longer for Cox to agree to the planning, adding in a sharp tone, "but _only_ for twenty-four hours." 

"Of course," he repeated. 

* 

The tunnel was dug into the earth and laid on ground that no one had bothered to cover; the clouds of dust and dirt churned up from their footsteps hung in the shafts of light from Parker's flashlight. On the packed earth her boots made a dull thud with resounded in the large, empty chamber. Their footsteps were the only sound, their flashlights the only light. The smell was pungent, musty, and Parker suspected they were the only non-rodent creatures there in some time. 

She shone her flashlight on either side of her as she walked, trying to estimate the dimensions of the tunnel. It seemed to go on forever lengthwise, though if she squinted her eyes Parker thought she could make out a small spec of light thousands of feet in front of her. She was, however, sure if it was really there, or if it was simply her eyes playing tricks on her as they adjusted to darkness. However, the walls on either side of them were about the length of a moderately sized room. On second inspection, she noticed their resemblance to filing cabinets. 

She chose a spot on the wall to her right, and stopped to examine it closer. There was a small identification tag on the wall, and what appeared to be two panels. The first was large and rectangular, and its handle resembled that of a door. The second resembled a pullout door. Parker pressed her gloved hand against the wall, then quickly drawing it away. 

"It's cold," she said with surprise. 

Jarod stopped. "Of course it is." 

"No," Parker replied, shaking her head. Again she applied her hand to the wall. "It feels different, almost as if..." Her voice trailed off as she pressed her ear to the wall. The sound shocked her. "Jarod, the wall is humming." 

"What?" He moved next to her, imitating her actions. He looked at her with unadulterated interest. "It _is_ humming." 

Parker bit back the sarcastic comment. "There must be a secondary power system done here," she said instead, adding, "I wonder what else they're hiding down here besides files." 

Jarod regarded her for a moment before answer for rhetorical question. "Let's find out." 

* 

The jet was close enough to spot the small abandoned plane on the Colorado runway (with the help of binoculars, of course). The pilot quickly relayed their position to the Centre Air Traffic Tower, and announced to the sweeper team seated in the cabin to prepare for landing. 

* 

All of the units were identical to the one Parker had first spot. At random, she and Jarod chose the unit labeled #P-061274-B. First, she pulled the handle that resembled a drawer, and shone her flashlight on its contents. Inside was one simply file folder, with a matching identity sticker on the front. She pulled it out, and balancing it in her arms, opened it up, reading the contents. 

Parker gasped inaudibly, her mouth hanging open. The realization was sickeningly familiar. "My God," she whispered. 

"What?" Jarod demanded softly. 

She wasn't sure how to begin. "It's a record of a genetic experiment performed on June 12, 1974," she said. Jarod's eyes went to the identification number again, finding it a perfect match to the date Parker mentioned. "There isn't much here, though. If it wasn't for the date, I'd venture to guess this was one of the Centre's early attempts at in-vitro fertilization." 

Jarod paused before continuing. "Three guesses as to what's behind door number two," he said flippantly. 

Parker's eyebrow arched. "The result?" In her mind came memories of the storage facility at Donoterase. 

There was a small gasp of cold air as Jarod pulled open the door, a hissing of pent air escaping. Indeed there was a secondary power system, and it powered a light that shone into the dark corridor. As the wisps of cold air settled, a small jar filled with formaldehyde was evident. In its eerie green aura, a horribly grotesque form appeared. 

"It barely looks human," Parker breathed. 

They left the unit and chose another. Each subsequent unit had an identification number that corresponded with the result's "conception" date. They were apparently organized in ascending chronological order, each one later than the next. And with each specimen, Parker began to recognize the human features--hands, feet, necks--obvious signs of the installation's increasing success with whatever reproductive feat they were trying to accomplish. 

* 

The jet touched down on the runaway alongside the abandoned plane. A tall man in a dark business suit stepped off the plane behind the last sweeper, pointing his hand to the opened airplane hanger. As the team moved towards the building, he held back two. 

"Search the cargo hold." 

He didn't need to say more, the sweepers knew what he was looking for. After a complete search, they stepped up the man most obviously in charge. 

"Nothing?" he asked. The sweeper shook his head, and quickly ran to join the others, who were halfway to the hanger. 

The man looked into the distance, searching. There was no way he would go into that hanger with the Haliburton strapped to his side, which led him to only one possible conclusion. 

Jarod and Parker had help. 

* 

Parker was halfway down the corridor, Jarod several steps ahead of her, when she stopped. She reread the contents of the folder, dated August 15, 1987. 

Her head whipped up, turned to where Jarod's flashlight bobbed up and down. "Open up a drawer, any drawer," she commanded. She expected Jarod to protest, but was greeted only by the familiar sound of a drawer creaking open. "See the blurb on donor information? Read it to me." 

"'Maternal sample #45-010360-4, paternal sample #45-122759-4.' Do you want the additional donors, too?" 

She didn't responded, however, the realization thudded in her brain. "That's exactly what it says here." She paused. "That's exactly what it says on every single one of these reports." 

The second wave hit her like a ton of bricks. If she used the same technique on these identification numbers that she did on the specimens, then the six digit code would indict the subjects were born on January 3, 1960, and December 27, 1959. The maternal subject was born on... 

Her eyes stung with tears. 

"I'm..." 

The sound of a door clanging open in direction they had come from startled both Parker and Jarod, and for the moment, her realized fears were forgotten. She knew who they were before it had fully registered in her brain. 

Sweepers. 

TBC 


	7. VII

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART SEVEN_**

The light from Parker's flashlight danced in front of her as the pair ran. In the darkness, the end of the tunnel never seemed to come; no matter how hard or fast she ran, it was static in its distance away, an unreachable goal. All around them, the dates of the test specimens were growing closer to the present, the details of their grosteque features no doubt becoming more and more human. What kind of atrocities had been committed here, in the name of science and the continuation of the Centre? Behind her, Parker heard the thud of sweepers on the packed earth, their footsteps mingling with the pleas of "stop!" For a moment, she thanked the stars the tunnel was the length of a football field, keeping some distance between the pair and the sweepers. 

Jarod had already reached the exit door when she arrived, and she found him banging mercilessly on its steel structure, yelling. The action didn't quite register with Parker, however; her attention was caught on the wall. She had found it--the final specimen in a line of hundreds. Its date--a little over two years before--hung unassuming in the file number. In her mind, another revelation fell into place, only confirming what she had known all along. That...that she knew who Prometheus was. 

In the distance, the sweepers were getting closer. 

Vaguely she heard the steel door depressurizing -- opening -- but her mind and body were consumed by other activities. Parker pulled open the file drawer, removing the folder within. She found it considerably heavier and thicker than the others; this, she realized, was success. In the realization, she froze, unable to open the folder...unable to face the scientific detachment contained in its reports and evaluations. 

Parker felt the urgent tug on her arm, jolting back to the reality of the crowded Colorado tunnel. Jarod was grabbing hold on her sleeve, and in an instant she was thrust into the light of the abandoned aircraft hanger. Before her eyes were assailed by the immense brightness, however, they registered the small blue box attached silently the tunnel wall. A blue box! Her memory tucked the observation away in her brain for safekeeping. 

Instead she blindly stumbled forward, unaware--and uncaring--of where they were heading. She made out the form of a third person, and heard a voice vaguely recognized, leading them away from the tunnel, but with sweepers on their trail she didn't question the act of generosity. For the moment, she placed an odd sense of trust in Jarod and his friend. Right then she was glad sweepers weren't there to greet her and finish the job her brother had started. 

Someone was pushing her into a black unmarked helicopter; the ground was slowly retreating from view as they lifted up into the crisp Colorado air. Now she took the time to spy her savior, sitting quietly in the pilot's seat, and found him sharing a fatherly grin with Jarod. 

"Major Charles," Parker said bluntly, letting the surprise seep into her voice. 

She imagined he would have craned his neck to spy her had he had the opportunity, but his position as helicopter pilot only allowed him a sideways glance at his son before he answered. Charles countered, "Miss Parker." 

The introduction was, of course, awkward. How could it not? She was his son's pursuer, the representation of everything his family had been running from. Now he was helping her? Parker's most vivid memory of Jarod's father was staring down a gun barrel as he sat tied to a chair, beaten and ever defiant. She imagined a long talk was in order once they were safely out of immediate danger. 

Then a familiar feeling washed over Parker: yet again, she had no idea where the helicopter was heading. Except this time, she took pleasure in knowing that Jarod probably didn't either. 

* 

The strong man he seemed, he was dreading the phone call he was about to make. 

"Yes?" a familiar voice rasped. 

"We lost them sir." Adding, "I'm sorry." 

He heard the old man cursed under his breath. 

"Don't make excuses, Ari," Raines hissed, his voice like acid. "You failed." 

He tried not to sound desperate. "They had help, sir," he said, watching the black dot retreating south in the sky. "Headed somewhere south." 

"Major Charles?" 

"I believe so, sir." 

"Find them." There was no room to move or breath in Raines' ultimatum, and Ari didn't want to imagine the possibilities that would arise should he fail. Unlike the woman he pursued, he didn't have a father fighting for him, making excuses when he failed to do as he was told. He knew that failure to comply would get him a bullet between the eyes. 

He agreed and was about to hang up when the old man added to his orders. "Kill the Major if you have to, but I want those two _alive_." 

"Yes, sir." 

* 

Broots found Sydney staring into space in his office. To be honest, he wasn't sure if the psychiatrist had even left that room since Broots had last seen him. Instead, the aging man was leaning back in his chair, contemplating a thought in a point in space that Broots was unaware of. He could, however, guess the people that might have been on his mind. Broots would be lying if he said their disappearances hadn't bothered him the past few days. 

Gently, the technician rapped on the doorframe, and gasped a bit when Sydney jumped almost a mile. 

"I'm sorry, Sydney. I didn't mean to startle you." Broots cautiously stepped into the office, conditioned to be humble after years of training from Miss Parker. Sometimes he forgot to tell the difference between her and Sydney. 

Unlike Parker, the psychiatrist smiled warmly. "I was just thinking..." his voice trailed off. 

About Jarod, Broots filled in on his mind. His eyebrows shot up. "I think I, um, might have...found them." 

This got Sydney's attention. A part of Broots' heart couldn't help but break as he heard the hope in his voice. "Are you sure?" 

Broots quickly took the seat in front of Sydney's desk, his eyes pausing briefly on the open DSA case. "I, um, intercepted an order for a Priority sweeper team dispatched somewhere in Colorado. They left about a half hour ago." 

Priority, the Centre's elite team of sweepers. On call almost twenty-four hours a day, they could be across the country in under an hour; with teams on the East and West coasts as well as the Midwest, nothing was out of their reach. Not many people had the authority to order a Priority, and recent events had dwindled that list to only a short few. 

"Priority," Sydney said, rolling the word over in his mouth. His eyes were glowing. "It has to be Jarod! Raines wouldn't spare the effort now if it wasn't." After a moment, he added, "But why Colorado? Maybe Jarod and Miss Parker found a safe house." 

"For what it's worth, there's no evidence in the Centre mainframe of any Centre-owned property in Colorado." 

Sydney chuckled, shaking his head. "Not everything is in the Centre mainframe, Broots." 

Good point, he added to himself. Silence fell between the two men, and Broots remembered the manilla folder he was holding in his hands. Slowly he placed it on the desk, not opening it or making any indication towards it. Sydney's eyes caught it, but he made no effort to open it. 

"I, uh..." Broots paused, "I finished the decryption." Still, Sydney was silent. "There really isn't the detailed description I was expecting, just transcripts, mostly of phone conversations. Almost every single mentions Jarod, not surprisingly most of them are between Miss Parker and Jarod. To be honest, Sydney, I really didn't know how much contact those two were in. I mean, I know he called her every once and a while, but the stuff they talk about sometimes..." 

The psychiatrist was staring, and Broots realized he was rambling. "Um, sorry." 

Sydney asked simply, "What did you find?" 

"That's the thing," Broots replied, leaning closer to Sydney and lowering his voice, "I'm not sure if I'm drawing the right conclusions. I mean...I think...that is...somehow, someone was under the belief that Miss Parker might be...collaborating with Jarod. Purposely delaying bringing him in." 

The psychiatrist was shaking his head softly. "Not true." 

"I know," he replied, "but someone sure thought so." Sydney's eyes were narrowing -- he was interested. Broots opened the folder finally, pulling the top sheet out and handing it to Sydney. "This was the most heavily encrypted and, incidentally, the oldest file." 

Sydney put on his reading glasses and skimmed over the conversation, reading the words exchanged about Parker's father. He threw the sheet down in mild disgust. "This proves nothing." 

"I never said it did," Broots said in his own defense. He was uncomfortable broaching the next question. "Syd, did Miss Parker ever, you know, talk about her experience with Jarod in December? About what happened to her father?" 

The smile on Sydney's face was warm. He understood that Broots only meant to best. "You know I'd never betray a confidence, Broots, especially Miss Parker, but," pausing, "I've always sensed there was something more than she told us." 

Broots remembered chillingly Parker's return after her excursion to Carthis Island. Her responses to queries about her state of health were short--at least, shorter than usual--and she seemed distracted. After Raines' ultimatum about Lyle and Jarod, she opened up--at least, as open as Miss Parker got. In the darkness of Sydney's office and nursing a second scotch, she told in chilling detail how her great-grandfather burned his entire family alive and moved to America to found the Centre. She talked about the adventure on the airplane, about her father jumping ship with his arms tightly wrapped around the box of scrolls. But that was where she stopped, and neither Broots nor Sydney pursued the hesitation. 

"Do you think something happened?" Broots asked. "Between Jarod and Miss Parker, that is." 

Sydney didn't answer, only stared at the transcript he had abandoned on his desk. 

* 

Parker hadn't eaten much in the last few days, just a bite or two here and there on her escape from New York City, and now it was taking its toll on her psyche and physical condition. Besides the adrenaline crash, her concentration was shaking, her vision was blurring, and her muscles felt weighted. Even the gentle touchdown on the helicopter on the ground sent her head spinning. God, she was hungry. 

The helicopter door slid open, revealing the piercing light of morning. Though hidden from view, a single hand reached into the cabin, and without thinking, Parker grabbed it. Her balance faulted as her feet hit the ground, and she found Jarod's hands steadying her arms. He flashed her a half-smile. "You OK?" he asked cautiously. 

"I'm _fine_," she answered coolly, trying to maintain her detached demeanor. Pushing past him, she added, "I just need some damn food." Behind her, she thought she heard Jarod laughing. 

Major Charles appeared from inside the house and produced a shiny red apple. He offered it to Parker silently, and she guessed he was either psychic or he had overheard her brief exchange with Jarod. Her stomach growled in anticipation of the object, and she could hardly muster the strength to refuse. She took the apple from his hand, and watched the Major stroll back towards his son. 

Jarod was retrieving the Haliburton from the luggage compartment of the helicopter (which his father had graciously recovered before their rescue) when his father stopped by his side. "Feisty," he said of Parker. 

Jarod glanced at her before answering. She was examining the mid-sized house, glaring up at an open second-story. Jarod agreed, "Yes, she is." In his mind, he made the mental note to check her bandage when he got the opportunity...if she even allowed him to. 

"And you're sure there isn't a catch to all of this?" 

Jarod stood, disbelieving what his father had just uttered. Of course, he understood why his father might have been hesitant about her, but beyond that feeble grasp, he didn't know what to think. "They _shot_ at her, Dad!" His raised voice caught her attention, and he lowered his tone to a strong whisper. "This isn't a Centre trap. I'm sure of it." 

He wasn't sure the Major believed him. There was hesitance in his eyes, but Charles tried hard to bury it with a smile. He pat his son on the shoulder. "If you trust her, then I trust her." Jarod knew that wasn't completely true, but at least they were attempting to compromise. 

Charles picked up the duffel bag on the ground, slung it over his shoulder, and walked back to the house, announcing on the way that there were people inside that needed to say 'hello.' 

* 

The boy was playing with familiar mathematical blocks when the door opened. The sweeper ushered Cox out of the room and into the presence of his awaiting visitor. The expression on his face was one of disappointment, and Cox knew he should have expected this. 

"Ari failed," Cox said simply. This was Jarod they were talking about, after all, the man who seemed to disappear. 

"There's more," Raines whispered. "Your safehouse in the Centre mainframe has been accessed, files decrypted." 

Cox was nonplused by the revelation. He turned back to observe the boy from behind the two-way mirror. He made a mental note to congratulate Mr. Broots on his successful fact-finding mission. Cox had made sure to clear out extremely sensitive information already. 

"What does our contact in Africa have to say about all this?" Cox asked, still staring at the boy solve the mathematical equation. His progress was impressive, already showing the intelligence at age two what all the other subjects had illustrated at four and five. Impressive, indeed. 

Raines was silent, and Cox smiled. "You haven't told him." 

"I'm waiting for the situation to play out," Raines supplied. 

Cox shook his head at the flimsy excuse. "Boil it down, and this is your project, your ass on the line, not mine." Cox stepped closer to the oxygen-dependant old man. "I suggest you remedy this situation before it's more than you can handle." 

He left Raines standing indignant in the shadows, nearing the door. Suddenly he stopped, throwing a nonchalant glance over his shoulder. "Forgot to mention it earlier, but your son woke up an hour ago." 

Cox disappeared into the boy's room again. 

* 

Since the day her mother was taken away from her, the central figure in Parker's life had made it known she wasn't living up to his standards. The decision at age thirteen to remove her from the distractions of private tutoring and weekends spent in air ducts at the Centre was at first made to seem for her own benefit. Her father had brought her into his office, sat her down on the couch, and explained that she needed stimulation beyond the concrete walls of the Centre. "You need somewhere to develop that special talent of yours," he had said, tapping her forehead lightly. 

"Talent?" she had asked curiously. Up until that point in her life, talent was something the shadowed figures on SL-27 had. 

"You're a Parker, Angel." His hands had straightened her shoulders, correcting her slumping posture. It was uncomfortable, rigid, but she hadn't dared to slouch again. "It's time you started acting and thinking like one." 

Of course, Parker had been too young to understand the true motivations behind her uprooting; to a confused young teenager, she saw in it her own failure towards her father. She wasn't old enough yet to grasp the real reason he only friend didn't live in a house like hers, and why he did things Parker didn't. She had no idea of the twin brother she had shared a womb with, and believed only the lie her father had forced upon her of her mother's "suicide." Her emotional detachment from normal life-preservers forced her to cling to the one constant in her life--her father--and she said goodbye to the United States for almost ten years with a hope that when she returned her father had finally accept her. 

The hope had slapped her in the face far too many times to count. 

Now, Parker's neck came to rest on the back and the worn sofa, her eyes squeezing shut and her mind trying to block out squeals of glee from the room next door. All her life, her father had made her feel inferior, silently acknowledged the small voices inside her that told her she wasn't good enough for him. Mr. Parker had made no secret of his desire for a son and that he was forced to "make due" with the hand he was dealt. On the outside, Parker tried to remain strong, but as her classmates returned to their respective homes at Christmas and she remained, she began to isolate from her father. 

The decision to smoke had been half of spite--her father had always abhorred the things--and half of desperation for her father's attention. Coupled with glass of scotch, she partied as hard as the male students at the private school in Italy. Yet he raised no red flags when the dean's quarterly assessment advised that further behavior might endanger her academic career. No doubt he sent the institution a large donation and a subtle request to drop the matter. The privileges of money and clout sheltered her from punishment. 

A light rain had been falling since their arrival at the cabin tucked away in the mountains, and now, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the clouds grew darker and the rain stronger. Parker sighed. She would never admit it in so many words, but Sydney had been more of a father to her than Mr. Parker would have ever been. The thought cut bitterly into her; it was hard to throw such words at a man dead and buried. Mr. Parker may have been dead, but Parker would find it exceedingly difficult to forget him. His lasting effects were all over her: on her demeanor, her home, her small circle of acquaintances, her choice of escape, her clothing. Everything was her, but really him. Only a small few things she could truly call her own, and she also hated to admit that she had Jarod to thank for all of them. 

And Jarod has his family, and Parker wondered where that left her. 

In the kitchen sat Jarod; his father, Charles; his younger sister, Emily; Peter, the boy cloned from Jarod. But what sat on the countertop, what Parker had seen with her own eyes, was the nail in the coffin: a handwritten letter from Margaret, Jarod's mother, dated four days earlier and detailing her arrival in less than a week. The family torn apart all those years ago by the prying eyes of the Centre was coming together once more. Parker felt like a selfish child for feeling so upset. 

_He's so close to his family you're slowly becoming useless to him. Which means you're becoming useless to us, too._

Lyle's words in her mind shot her eyes open, and in the dim light she saw a familiar figure standing in the doorway. Behind him the light from the fireplace danced on the walls. The voice inside her told her to open up and join the group in front of the heat, but the manilla envelope sitting on her blanketed lap drew her attention instead. Besides, she had rationalized, she hadn't wanted to intrude. 

She and Jarod made eye contact for almost a minute before Parker looked away with a frustrated sigh, her hand cradling her cheek as she titled her head. After a minute, she said, "I'm happy for you." 

Parker waited for the inevitable denial from him, knowing how easily he could see through her, but instead was answered by footsteps across the floor. Her eyes fixed on an unknown point on the wall, she felt the couch sink under his weight. His hand was resting on her leg near her knee--or rather, on the blanket that covered her legs. It had grown awfully cold since their arrival. 

She heard his fingers brushing against the corners of the folder, the gentle slide of the object across the blanket and into his awaiting hand. Just then her hand snapped on tap of it, suddenly halting its progress. She glared at Jarod, but said nothing. Outside, the rain fell hard and the wind began to howl. 

"You should eat something," Jarod said quietly. 

The suggestion, though well-intentioned, annoyed Parker. "Don't mother me, Jarod. I don't need it." 

Jarod could have easily defended his position, and a shouting match between them would have more than likely ensued, but he dropped the issue, not uttering a single word in defense of her snappy remark. His silence, of course, made her feel guilty, but she didn't apologize. She wasn't sure if she had anything to be sorry about. 

"We could sit here all night," Parker whined, "or you could tell me what you want." 

"What makes you think I want something?" 

She resisted the urge to snort. "You didn't come in here without a purpose, Jarod. I know you better than that." 

"I..." Jarod hesitated. Parker wasn't sure if he would finish the sentence or not. "I just came in here to see if you were all right. I hadn't heard a peep from you all night and I thought..." The thought hung between them. Suddenly, Jarod shifted gears. "Join us." 

"What?" 

His hand captured hers. "You can't stay back here forever, Parker. If you won't eat anything, the least we could do is talk. I'm sure there's plenty to talk about." 

Parker's eyes widened. Her voice was incredulous. "You want me to go out there and pretend my last encounter with your father never happened?" She remembered his beaten, defiant face, and her blind determination. "I think it's pretty clear your family doesn't want a thing to do with me." 

In her mind, it made perfect sense. Earlier that morning, she might have been keen to converse, but as the night waned, so did her belief in the idea. There weren't words to convey to Charles the tricky relationship she held with Jarod. (She wasn't even sure she could describe it to herself.) Parker was tied to an organization that had attempted Emily's murder, and created Peter. It didn't matter that she didn't condone the actions; to Jarod's family, her and the Centre were one and the same. Now she was supposed to drum up support from them? She had overheard Charles' hesitation by the helicopter, and she knew what she was up against. This, she had concluded, was the safest option. 

Jarod's thumb was stroking the back of her hand. It was a comforting gesture, and Parker didn't flinch. "They don't blame you, Parker," he said softly. Sometimes she wondered if Jarod wasn't psychic after all. 

Parker waited for her namesake to kick in, to rebuff Jarod's tenderness and ice over. But it never came. Parker wondered what the hell was happening to her. 

"What makes you so sure?" Her voice was so small, so vulnerable, on the brink of spilling emotion. 

Jarod smiled, patting her hand. "Come join us." When she began to protest again, he added quickly, "I think you should see something my mother sent. It might help clear up some of that doubt in your mind." 

He rose. "Oh," he said, "bring that folder you're protecting. Peter might be able to make some sense of it." 

A feeling of déjà vu settled on her as she received his outstretched hand. 

TBC 


	8. VIII

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART EIGHT_**

He took in his own shallow breath, and the pain seared from his abdomen. He squeezed his eyes shut and winced, letting the air escape from his lips. This process he repeated for almost five minutes before he started to become numb to the pain from his gunshot wound. He knew he was receiving just enough painkillers to keep his cognizant, but hardly comfortable. 

The sound of artificial wheezing didn't register in his brain at first. It blended in with the hiss of his own machines. 

"You're awake," the figure hissed. He craned his neck as best he could to glimpse the man, but he had positioned himself far enough in the shadows so as to be out of sight. "It's a miracle he didn't kill you." 

Lyle had nothing to say, and he kept his mouth shut. Raines advanced from the shadows, pulling his oxygen tank behind him. His expression was not one of pleasure. 

He was next to Lyle's bed, leaning over him. If looks could have killed, then Raines would have finished Lyle off. "What the _hell_ were you thinking? Do you have _any_ idea what kind of jeopardy you've placed this project in?" 

Still, Lyle was silent. 

"ANSWER ME!" Raines boomed. His voice echoed in the empty halls of the Centre's Infirmary. Lyle didn't have an answer for his father, and the old man was shaking his head. "I can only imagine you weren't in your right mind when you did what you did." 

Inside, something snapped. 

"We were losing credibility with her!" he rasped. He hadn't had much liquid since he had regained consciousness, and his father didn't seem keen on providing him with any. "I did what I thought was right." 

"By eliminating her?" Raines chuckled. "I didn't think you were that stupid, Lyle. I hope you didn't get that from me." 

He seethed. "I didn't plan on killing her, if you must know." The statement piqued Raines' interest. "Surveillance proves her and Jarod are..." he searched for the proper word, "closer than her reports let on. I was willing to test that closeness." 

Raines started to back towards the exit, instead choosing a chair sitting waywardly near it. "You failed with Zoe," he commented. "You thought you could win this time, too?" He shook his head, still smiling a bit. "Son, when are you going to learn there's much more than the simple pursuit?" 

The question was rhetorical. Lyle sensed the unspoken hesitation in Raines that he would have known in Mr. Parker to be disappointment. But then Raines would never be up front about something like that; instead, he'd make Lyle earn his trust the hard way. 

"How's our timetable look like?" 

A smile hung on Raines' face for a moment before he answered. "Given your condition, I don't think you're quite ready to be back in the swing of things." 

He should have expected it; it surprised him nonetheless. 

Raines wordlessly slipped out of the room, the sound of an oxygen tank desperate for oil retreating down the Infirmary's long corridor. Son of a bitch, Lyle fumed. Cox must have put him up to this. Yes, Lyle decided, this was that doctor's doing. He knew how to manipulate Raines into doing his bidding, and excluding his son from the one project he had practically built was only the final brick in his wall of power. 

Lyle knew what he had to do, even if it jeopardized his own future and the future of the very project he had staked his life to only a few years earlier. 

* 

_ October 31, 1959 _

Dear Margaret, 

Congratulations! I am so happy for you and Charles. I have never doubted that the two of you would be anything other than the best of parents to a child, and I'm thrilled that life has seen fit to give you the opportunity. While it may seem next to impossible at times, I speak from experience when I say that the next seven months will be the most enjoyable ones in your entire life, filled with many new discoveries of the wonders of life. 

One of these new discoveries has left me reconsidering all the plans I had carefully planned. I am, in fact, expecting twins now, it seems. Can you believe it? Here I was ready to welcome one bundle of joy into my life, and now I find my joy doubled as this welcome piece of news! Though I find I could never tell him the full truth about our expected family, my husband seems as thrilled with this revelation as I. 

On the heels of both our pieces of good news, we must get together for lunch soon. I imagine we have many names and stories to trade. You would not believe the size of my stomach since we last saw each other! 

I hope to see you soon. 

Yours truly,  
Catherine 

* 

Parker had moved from isolation in an empty room to isolation in a filled one. She was curled up by a raging fireplace, the blanket still draped over her lap, the piece of paper and old photo turning over in her fingers. She was simply staring at the burning logs, her eyes and ears entranced by the crackling while her mind raced. Behind her in the kitchen area, Jarod and Major Charles sat with Peter and a laptop. 

She had always been aware that her mother and Jarod's mother has known each other. Margaret's reaction to Parker on Carthis was proof of that relationship. But some how she had never imagined how close they were, never fathomed that her and Jarod would have met had regardless of Centre intervention. Again she turned the photo over, her eyes running over the caption written in familiar handwriting that she had memorized. 

_Marnie 6 mos.  
Jarod 2 mos.  
Charlevoix, Michigan  
July, 1960_

"I remember the first time you visited us in Michigan." 

Parker turned suddenly at the voice beside her, and found Charles seated next to her. His features were soft, and the light from the fire danced on his wizened face. He quietly took the photo from her loose fingers, and regarded it with a smile. 

"We took you two out into the backyard and we had a picnic." He was shaking the photo as he spoke. "It took your mother so long to keep you from squirming long enough to snap this. You were so curious." 

Parker didn't know what to say to the man. She wasn't sure words would do. He continued. "We tried for years before your mother was able to get us on the fast track at NuGenesis. At the time..." he paused, "at the time, it seemed like a dream come true. The doctors had told Margaret it was unlikely she would be able to carry a child to term, and yet the doctors at NuGenesis managed to give us three beautiful children." 

Charles looked into the fire. "Did you know Margaret was with your mother when she went into labor?" Parker's expression was incredulous; no, she hadn't been aware of that fact. "They were having lunch at this little diner when your mother's water broke. Margaret wanted her to go to a hospital, but your mother insisted on calling your father." He stopped for a moment, shaking the photo once more for emphasis. "This was the first time they had seen each other since you and Jarod were born, since she..." he searched for the right word, "lost the other child. It wasn't hard to see her devotion to you." 

Parker silently took the photo back, running it through her fingers, trying to conjure up a memory of the day that simply did not exist. Charles, however, continued to speak. "Their friendship was strained, obvious, after..." He didn't finish the sentence, instead moving on. "Margaret and I knew Catherine was in a delicate position at Centre, and it was no secret who was responsible for taking Jarod. But...I guess Margaret expected that her and Catherine would band together and rescue him." 

Charles looked at Parker, into her eyes. She saw the same raw intensity and compassion in his that she saw in Jarod's. Like father, like son. His voice was whispered, broken, and uncharacteristic of the old man. "Sometimes I try to remember her - Margaret, that is, not your mother - try to remember the happy times we had together, with Jarod, and...I can't. It's like...it's like her face is gone from my memory banks." 

Parker felt something hit inside of her. Sydney had shared with her Jarod's own fear at not remembering his mother's face. Countless DSAs illustrated this. Would a similar fate have befallen her if not for the numerous photos of Catherine Parker sprinkled around her home and office? If she had repressed the day of her death in my memory for years, would a similar fate have been delivered to the many happy memories of her mother? Parker shuddered to think of the possibility. 

Charles pulled the folded piece of paper from his pocket, fingering it much as Parker had the photo. "I," he began, stopping abruptly. His voice was now barely a whisper, almost inaudible over the dull crackle of the fireplace. "I don't know what I'm going to say to her. I don't know if words can replace all these years we've missed out on." To Parker, he sounded so vulnerable. 

A voice shattered their private conversation. 

"I'm in!" exclaimed Peter. 

The photo still clasped between her fingers, the blanket across her laps lay discarded as Parker and Major Charles huddled around the boy at the kitchen table. Jarod stood just behind Parker, his arms folded across his chest and his face wearing an expression she couldn't read. She felt his eyes reading over her shoulder as she examined the computer screen. The boy had managed to break into the blue box computer files at the Colorado installation, a feat worthy of Broots himself, she noted. 

"Try 'Specimen Records,'" Parker suggested. A prompt appeared on the screen, requesting the desired specimen record, and Parker rattled off the number she had memorized from the file she had stolen. 

Nine related files appeared, but the group soon learned that what was available was also heavily encrypted. From what decrypted information Parker could find, there seemed to be records of culturing, growing, implantations... 

Her eye caught on the final file. 

"Download that," she ordered. Parker glanced at Jarod, adding, "We might have better luck decrypting once we're detached from the system." He simply shrugged in reply. 

* 

Sometimes, when he was alone, she talked to him, but only to him. None of the grown-ups could hear, and he liked that. She was his friend, and his alone. 

"_Don't be afraid, little one_," she said. Her voice was so soft and warm. "_Momma is coming for you soon. Don't you worry._" 

He saw her standing in front of him, and tried to reach for her hand. His bed prevented him from reaching her, however. 

"I go away," he said with sadness. "Far away. You come, too?" 

She smiled. "_Of course I'll come. I'll always be with you, little one. Your Momma will be here, too._" 

Her words comforted him, and he lay quietly in his bed, shutting his eyes. After a minute, he opened them, and she was still there beside him. 

"Momma happy, like you?" 

His friend seemed to reflect on the question before answering. "_She will be. You'll see._" 

* 

Raines fingered the small, familiar disk. The disk had been removed from Centre storage a day ago, but no one seemed to know a thing. It was simply there...and then it wasn't. Now it sat in his hands, as if tempting fate to finger him in the theft. It had come in a small package by this morning's mail, no return address or declaration of origin to be found anywhere. But Raines didn't need a postmark or a name to tell him where the DSA had come from. Its contents had Mr. Parker's name written all over them, however invisible. 

With slight hesitation, he placed the DSA in its appropriate slot and pressed 'play' on the viewer. 

_ For Centre use  
Chairman's Office  
08/25/59 _

Mr. Parker pushed himself back in his chair, his eyes skimming the report he held in his hands. He stayed that way for some time before the sound of his office door whooshing open startled him. He looked up to see Catherine standing in the doorway, and his face seemed--for an instant--to light up. 

He rose quickly, greeting her in the center of the office. Already halfway through her second trimester, Catherine's ever-growing stomach was visible underneath her clothes. Her step, it seem as well, was acquiring a distinctive waddle. 

"How is my little Parker?" Mr. Parker asked expectantly. He placed his hands on her stomach, his eyes lit with wonder at the growing child within her. 

"Very active - giving Momma quite a workout today," Catherine replied with a slight wince. "I had another checkup. Did you know our baby isn't supposed to be kicking this much for another few weeks?" 

"Nothing my son does is surprising. He's a Parker, Catherine." 

His wife tilted her head to the side. "A son? What makes you so sure?" 

Parker had an expression on his face that mocked disappointment. "I just know." 

She shook her head, and Parker made his way back to his desk. She stood there as he took his seat, as if waiting for him to initiate the next part of the conversation. When he picked up his file and began to read again, she broached the subject. 

"You said there was something we needed to discuss." 

Parker looked up, his face showing confusion for a split second. Then he remembered. "Oh yes." He put the file down. "I might have some good news for that friend of yours - what was her name again?" 

"Margaret." 

"Margaret! Her husband is with the Air Force? 

"That's right." 

"How do_ you know these people, Catherine?" _

Catherine knew her husband was avoiding the question. "You said you might have good news..." 

"Patience, my dear. Patience!" He smiled. "Now, I talked with some of my friends down at our Atlanta clinic and I told them that Margaret and her husband have been trying there for over five months with no success and I think I may have managed to get them on the accelerated track." Catherine's face was clouded with confusion. "The accelerated track, Catherine! They'll be given priority! From what you've told me, they seem like perfect candidates for a child and if God won't help them then I'll be damned if I can't." 

His wife looked like she might cry. Her face boiled over with happiness. "I can't believe it. This is wonderful, wonderful_ news! I must write to Margaret at once!" _

A moment. Her happiness suddenly began to wane, but her husband's smile sustained. Suspicion began to grow. "Why are you doing this?" she asked cautiously. 

"I told you already," he replied. "From what you've told me, they seem like the perfect parents. Perhaps it's my own happiness at our own arrival that makes me want to share this event with everyone." He sensed her suspicion. "Don't you believe me?" 

Catherine shook her head. "Priority track in Atlanta is reserved for extremely privileged couples--" 

"--like your friends--" 

"--or potential test subjects." The suggestion fell into the silent room. All traces of happiness on Parker's face were gone now. "Just...tell me you're not using them as test subjects. Tell me you haven't stored their genetic material already." 

Parker said nothing, only glanced at the file on his desk. Catherine noticed the action, and before he could react, snatched the report from his desk. She scanned the header, noting it was copy of a transfer of materials to Pakor Foods, Inc., dated three days ago. She knew there was only one interpretation of that place. 

"You son of a bitch," she hissed. "You're not interested in my friends, you're interested in furthering your career!" She felt the tear ducts in her eyes welling up. "Why! Why - give me one good reason why!" 

He met her gaze and held it firmly. 

"Prodigy." 

The project name caught her off-guard. 

"What about it?" 

Parker came out from behind his desk, drawing closer to his wife. "This is it! This is the breakthrough we've been looking for! For years Raines has been trying to create a Prodigy from a normal child - I'm here to tell you we've found one, ready-made!" 

"Margaret?" she replied unbelieving. "And Charles?" 

"Yes!" he replied with enthusiasm. 

"And you think they they're going to just sign over their miracle child to you just like that?" Parker didn't answer. "I can't do this." 

"What?" 

"I can't lead my friend into this trap. I won't." 

Parker held her gaze for another moment before returning to his desk again. To Catherine, it was not a sign of defeat; instead, it was a gesture that there was to be no debate about whether or not she would participate. Rubbing her stomach, she realized she didn't have much of a choice. 

The DSA finished and it slid out of the player. Raines did not pick it up, instead thinking about the scene he had just witnessed. In his mind, he tried to figure out the message Mr. Parker was trying to send, and had no luck finding it. 

* 

Sydney thought that perhaps staring at the telephone might will it to ring. Four hours, he had been sitting in the solitude and darkness of his office, his mind racing as it rushed to justify the length of silence since he had last spoken to either Jarod or Miss Parker. _Were they dead?_ was the question that had entered his mind, followed by _Are they hurt?_ and _Are they safe?_ and _Where are they?_ and, finally, _Have they found what they're looking for?_

Sydney knew what Jarod was looking for; his goal had not changed in five years. To find his family was his most important goal, to stay out of the Centre's grasp a close second. If she grudgingly went along and he helped Parker find hers on the way, then things were as close to perfect as they could manage. But Sydney could only imagine what lurked in the corners of Parker's mind; it was a position she had willingly put them into. No doubt her brother and New York City were on her mind, but his distracted tone of voice days earlier had suggested something else was eating away at her tone. 

With frustration bred from hours of disappoint, his eye left the telephone. All he wanted was a phone call, an email, something, _anything_ to cool his nerves. It wasn't much. Jarod had managed much more than this under far more stressful conditions than these. And yet nothing. Perhaps the addition of Miss Parker to equation cooled his communication skills? Sydney let the thought hang in his mind rather than exploring the possible implications of that thought. 

He had no one to share his anxiety with, no one but Broots in the Centre who he trusted. Most didn't care one way or another, or else they were the roots of the problem. Sydney had sent Broots off in search of information, furthering isolating himself. He wanted to do something! More times than naught had found him powerless in such situations as these, forced to sit in his office and wait for things to change instead of being the one to change them. Miss Parker would pick up her gun, perhaps intimidate someone to get what she wanted. Broots would hack into a database. But Sydney had no means of information gathering outside of his co-workers. So there he sat, alone and impatient. 

The scurrying of footsteps along the tiled floor could only announce the arrival of one person. Inwardly, Sydney sighed impatient. This dance was becoming exceedingly predictable. He waited for the bombshell to drop, for the next revelation to follow and for the plot to thicken. His life was turning into a twisted story, or perhaps it had always been that way? 

Broots' face was dark, an expression the small man did not wear very well. His unfamiliarity with it could have been to blame. 

"You're not going to believe this..." 

* 

If Raines had been angry at the discovery of an empty motel room in Pennsylvania, now he was seething. 

"Find him!" he hissed, and sweepers scattered. 

They futilely searched under beds and behind respirators. Curtains to private alcoves were yanked back; suites were tossed in the frantic search for the missing man. Lyle's "escape" had plunged the entire Infirmary and Renewal Wing into turmoil. How did a man with a two-day old gunshot wound to the abdomen escape from a wing under lock and key? Raines concluded he had help, and within minutes the interrogation of the usual suspects began. 

Looking around at the chaos, it dawned on him, the connection so evident in his mind. The son of a bitch had dangled his access in front of his face with an arrogant defiance only the Parkers could muster. 

Raines had always known this struggle for power between he and Mr. Parker had been like a chess game. Except now, he wasn't sure what the next move was yet. 

TBC 


	9. IX

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART NINE_**

It was late in Colorado and ungodly in Delaware. Out of courtesy, Parker tried the Centre first, aware of the risk and hardly expecting the voice to answer. 

"Have you slept at _all_, Sydney?" she asked when he answered. 

There was a small, inaudible sigh. Relief, she guessed. "Have you?" he countered. She didn't answer, however, unwilling to let him mother her with such questions. The silence between them was awkward for a moment, before he breeched it. "I was worried...I worried that something had happened to you, Parker. To either of you, both of you." 

Her eyes absentmindedly left the rain outside and glanced at the man hard at work at the computer. The care for them was evident in Sydney's voice, and it was hard to ignore. "I'm sorry," she offered, not knowing what else to give. She wasn't good at these kinds of conversations. 

"Where are you?" Again, it didn't take long for him to get to his point. 

She was shaking her head, not aware for the moment that he couldn't see her. "We've been through this before, Syd." 

"I know." He sounded as if he'd been telling himself the same thing for hours now, unable to convince his conscience thoroughly. "I guess you can't blame me for trying." 

Was this how every conversation between he and Jarod began? For a moment she almost said something to that effect, but at the last minute decided against it. She wasn't exactly sure she knew why, however. 

"Parker, there's something you should know." She sighed loudly, readying her mind for the next revelation. She wondered what could possibly thicken the plot any more. "Lyle's gone." 

"He's dead?" She couldn't help the bit of excitement that escaped into her voice. Jarod turned from the laptop at her question, his eyes full of questions. 

"No, no. He, uh, he seems to have escaped." 

She was incredulous. "Escaped? Sydney, the man had a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Even in the Centre, he doesn't just waltz out like that." 

Jarod looked concerned. She waved him off, but he persisted. 

"We don't know much," by 'we', Parker knew he was including Broots, "but Raines seems to think he had some help. They've been talking to certain employees since this afternoon." After a pause, he continued. "I want you to watch yourself, Parker. Both of you. As long as he's out there, there's no way of telling whether or not he'll want to..." 

The man didn't answer. Parker finished for him. "You can say it, Sydney. That he'll want to finish what he started." The words were biting, bitter, and full of emotion. It had hit her full force days ago, but now she had more to deal with, and a second wave of emotion was started to form in her mind. She bit it back. "We're in safe hands here, Syd. You don't have to worry." 

In the corner of her eye, she saw Jarod smile sweetly. 

"I always worry," the psychiatrist replied. Parker's eyes found the rain-streaked window she had been staring at earlier, and the droplets running down the glass entranced her. She knew that if she were to touch the glass, it would be as cold as the outside air. After a moment, she heard Sydney's voice in her ear, momentarily forgetting she was holding the phone. 

His voice was kind. "Is there something else on your mind? You seem...distant." 

Her mind was alive with activity. The last four days had been nothing but activity, one revelation after another, it seemed. Running and running, she had barely had time to deal with the issues personally, Jarod's eyes constantly on her. Privacy was a luxury she hadn't had, and it was privacy she needed to grieve. Her breakdown in the airplane hanger had been a rarity, and something she would give anything *not* to repeat a second time. She wasn't sure how to answer Sydney's question, but any mention of the truth she knew would bring her to a position she was uncomfortable in. 

"Parker?" Now he was worried again, she could hear it in the minutest traces of his voice. Her exterior was steel, but her insides were crumbling. The fall felt so familiar... 

"I..." she trailed off. What would she say? How could she possibly finish the thought and convey all that had happened? Suddenly, she steeled against the burden of her truth, her posture becoming rigid and her face blank. It stared at her from the reflection in the windowpane, and she recognized a familiar face. "There's nothing. Nothing at all." 

They exchanged goodbyes and Parker hung up, her eyes still fixed on the rain streaking the window. The headset fell with a thud on the bed, and soon the room was filled with occasional keystrokes and the rhythmic pounding of precipitation. She watched the dark sky light up like a photograph's camera bulb, and every once in a while a streak of electricity would dance from cloud to cloud. The silence between she and Jarod was not deafening and heavy like it had been earlier, and his whispered words made her jump. 

"You didn't tell him," he remarked. Her eyes never left the windowpane, so she wasn't sure whether or not he was looking at her. She couldn't feel his gaze burning holes in her body, and guessed not. 

The rain continued to pound. 

"No," she answered simply. 

A low rumble of thunder filled the room. 

"Why not?" She glanced in his direction, and found him intent on the laptop. 

I wouldn't know where to begin, she thought. "I don't know," she lied. She heard him sigh - saw his shoulders rise and fall - and knew her lie was spotted. After all, she reminded herself, the Centre didn't want him back so badly just to protect their reputation. The thought stuck in her brain for a second longer than it should, for reasons she was unaware of. 

Parker looked dejectedly at the receiver on the bed before scooting around the edge of the mattress. Her legs dangled over and she moved them a little out of boredom. No, not boredom...maybe apathy...or thought. Her mind settled on _thought_, and her mind's processes became clear. The memory was clear and vivid, yet nothing she had ever recalled before. Perhaps because it was short and of little significance? 

In her mind, she was watching him put something to together while she sat quietly...she wasn't sure what it was he was putting together; at that age, she hadn't paid much attention because little details like this weren't crucial. His focus was intense on the pieces of the puzzle, and Parker's attention was intense on him. Curiously, she asked, _Why are you doing that?_ He looked up at her, and she saw genuine thought in his eyes as he struggled for an appropriate answer. Then he shrugged and mumbled something about Sydney, but her mind had tuned out the rest... 

She sighed rather dramatically and his head turned curiously in her direction. He wore a strange expression - bordering on humorous, in fact - but Parker's reaction was not to smile. Instead she glared at him, which she soon found only worsened the look. Now he was smiling, bearing his white teeth. 

"I'm having a hard time finding something funny here, Jarod," she hissed. Much like she remembered, he shrugged his shoulders in response and turned back to his computer. But Parker caught it and it enraged her - he was amused. Amused! The disgust and anger was rising up inside of her. Suddenly she felt like they were back in the car, and the walls of the spacious room upstairs were more constricting than the small cabin of the sports car they had driven cross-country. 

Her mini-tirade was interrupted by a yawn that erupted rather abruptly from her mouth. She was able to grasp her hand over her mouth fairly quickly to cork the sound, but some escaped quicker than she could react. To say she hadn't gotten much decent sleep in past few days was an understatement: between the motels and the car and the airplane, her sleep had been light and plagued with dreams of her mother. The latter alone was enough to make sleep difficult, the increasingly cryptic messages Parker felt from her inner sense distracting her when she was awake. It would not have taken much effort to lean backward and fall asleep on the bed, but she felt a sense of...she wasn't sure what she felt, but she knew she couldn't fall asleep quite yet. 

Jarod had spent a better part of the evening attempting to decrypt the file Peter had recovered from the Mainframe, and for almost four hours he had had little success. Someone had gone to great lengths to make sure only certain people read that file, and their encryption was making it difficult for she and Jarod to be added to that list. By going to sleep, she almost felt as if she were betraying the information the file held; that by giving up and giving in to her fatigue, she would resent it. It was an irrational feeling she knew. 

"I'm curious," Parker said, her sudden question taking both of them by surprise. It was imperceptible, but she heard a child's voice mingling with hers as she spoke. "Why New York City?" 

Again, his reaction was identical; eerie, almost. His whole body was facing her now. 

"Isn't it obvious?" he replied. 

She took her stance. "Explain it to me." 

He contemplated his answer before starting. "I found myself inexplicably drawn there. I...I don't know if I can explain it. It just felt...right. The logical next step." He paused, adding with a smile, "I guess logic was what found you catching me down that alley." 

"Logic." She repeated the word several times in her mouth with a whisper. "So no one tipped you off? About whomever you managed to save, I mean, no hint? You weren't told to go there, you just...found yourself in New York City." Her voice hinted at skepticism. 

"That's right," he said. "Were you hoping that you'd somehow fallen in one of Lyle's traps?" 

It was like he had read the words straight from her brain. She hated that about him, the way he always anticipated her, the strange connection between them. "I don't know if I'd use _hope_, but..." 

Parker felt herself on the brink of spilling everything. Why was she doing this? Why was confessing to Jarod, and not Sydney? Surely, she must have trusted Sydney more than Jarod...right? 

"I guess..." She hesitated for a moment, and finally, in a moment of weakness or insanity or God knows what else kind of lapse of mental function, spilled. "I guess I just wanted to know that this wasn't some act of vengeance on his part, that this wasn't a way to make his climb up the Centre power ladder that much easier." God Dammit, she berated herself, feeling the tear ducts moistening. "I didn't want to be just a pawn to get to you. I'm more than that!" 

The admission felt strange and conceited, but to her, it made sense. To die in order to bring Jarod in was, in her eyes, a fate worse than death at the hands of a conspiracy to cover up a secret or a project - or both. 

Her voice may have been forceful before, but now it was quiet and withdrawn. "I can't live like this, Jarod. I *won't* live like this. I will not allow myself to-" 

"- to become like me," he finished. She didn't know how to answer. 

Tension, their familiar friend, was back, settling comfortably between Jarod and Parker as quickly as possible. The air inside seemed almost as electric as the lightning outside. 

_Philadelphia_. 

It was like a dam breaking, the waters of her memory suddenly flooding her conscious mind. The moment in time that only minutes ago had been vague and fuzzy was so vividly. Jarod had been putting together a 1000-piece puzzle, and wouldn't let her help, relegating her to the sidelines to watch. Her non-participation had been frustrating, and she had taken to asking hundreds of questions to show it. Somehow they fell into the cities game, after, of course, Miss Parker explained the rules: to name a city (and here she had limited it to the United States) that ended in the last letter of the city name. Parker knew, as a child, that suggesting to play a game based on memory gave Jarod on unfair advantage, but it was the spirit of competition that mattered to her. 

_Philadelphia. _

Albuquerque. 

Eerie. 

Ewing. 

Grand Rapids. 

Sioux Falls. 

Most of the city names blurred together still. They played long after Jarod's puzzle was complete and until Sydney came to retrieve from the SimLab. But when they went to sleep that night in their respective beds, the city game was laid to rest, and it was never mentioned again. 

"Are you ever going to tell him?" Jarod's gentle voice jarred her from her memory. 

She took a moment to recover, unable for an instant to recall who they were talking about...or what. "I don't know." She buried her face in her hands. That was her answer for a lot of questions tonight. 

Parker couldn't help the involuntary twitch when she felt his hand massaging the base of her neck. A second later she felt the mattress ink as he sat down, and she realized she hadn't even heard him advance from the computer. Her muscles were tense with alertness as his fingers worked the knots that had been forming for weeks now. Not that it didn't feel good; in fact, she realized, it felt wonderful. She would give anything for him never to stop. The rational half of her brain, however, screamed about how inappropriate the situation was. _Stop!_ Her brain was shouting at her. _Stop this now!_ Parker thought she must have sighed and allowed some vocalization of pleasure escape her lips, because Jarod began to massage harder, and moved slightly lower down her spine. His fingers had hardly reached indecent levels; in fact, they had barely slipped beneath the collar of her shirt. 

In her mind, she saw a flash of two months ago, and felt (for a moment) the warmth of a fireplace on her cold and clammy skin. Her eyes shot open. This is _not_ appropriate, she thought. 

Suddenly the tension between them was very different. 

"I'm sorry," he began. 

Parker shook her head, her eyes not daring to look at him. "Don't apologize." She hadn't meant it to sound like that. She hadn't meant to imply that she wouldn't mind if he started again. 

It was then that his attention found something new. Neither had realized that a small 'OK' message had appeared on the screen. Because of the distance between the laptop and the bed, however, she was unable to read exactly what it declared. In a flash, he was moving back towards the machine, and their small intimate moment was over. 

"It worked," he said, disbelief seeping into his voice. "It actually worked." 

Her muscles ached with fatigue, but somehow she maneuvered herself to stand behind him, reading the decrypted file over his shoulder. Immediately, her eyes caught the glaring discrepancy. 

"Look at that." Her finger indicated the donor subject numbers. "The listed primary maternal subject is identical to the ones we found in Colorado, but look! They used a different primary paternal donor." 

It was true. Sometime after August 15, 1987, the Colorado installation had stopped using paternal sample #45-122759-4. Now she read that the final result of Project Prometheus was conceived from an identical maternal sample and paternal sample #45-051760-4. Parker concerned the number, and determined the donor's birthday to be May 17, 1960, almost five months younger than the first. Like she had done since they had narrowly escaped the sweepers, her mind ran the date through anything and everything she could think of, but nothing about the day was significant. 

"Prometheus is only genetically identical to about half of those..." Parker paused, "failures in Colorado. The others are half siblings, I would assume." She shook her head. "I'm not sure if that's supposed to be reassuring or not." 

Jarod sighed. "I'll have Peter look into it tomorrow morning, see what he can find." 

The screen scrolled down and Parker continued to read the various dated entries. It was as if someone were keeping a diary on the child. She read how successful the fertilization was, when the embryo reached the crucial eight-cell cluster stage, successful implantation into a surrogate mother...in her mind, Parker was alone in the cabin, the child resting innocently in her blood-soaked arms as Brigette's last breath escaped. She shuddered at the memory, and turned away from the laptop, unable to read much more. 

She was staring at the rain streaks again when she heard Jarod call her name. "I think you should come and take a look at this." 

"Just read it to me," she replied, a familiar bitterness seeping back into her voice. He didn't even seem to notice. 

"The last entry here is a record of transfer for all copies of files pertaining to Prometheus. Apparently only those involved with Prometheus are allowed to see the files..." 

"...except for us..." 

"...and only registered doctors and scientists can make copies." 

Her arms were crossed across her chest. "You have a point, I assume?" She pointedly glared at him to punctuate her question. Whatever semblance of sensitivity she might have shown seconds ago had evaporated completely. 

"The file indicates Cox was the doctor who requisitioned files." 

The lying bastard. _He's on our side, Angel._ She should have expected it, at least, but for some foreign reason the revelation managed to shock her. Or maybe it wasn't disgust. Maybe it was the fact that her father had stood in front of her as she held a life barely a few minutes old and he had dared to lie about Cox to her. That after all the years and countless lies and excuses for anything and everything, Parker had expected this one ounce of decency from him. 

He was jotting down the two sample numbers when her mind came to a conclusion. "Lyle brought Cox into the Centre. You don't think...that what happened in New York has any connection to Prometheus, do you?" _What happened in New York_ was as close to the real words as she could get, unable to make herself say _my brother's failed murder attempt_. "How did you find out about this, Jarod?" 

Parker watched him move around in his seat, his eyes fixed on the computer screen. He didn't answer. She recognized the avoidance technique instantly, stalking towards me. "I asked you a question, and I expect an answer." Her voice was short and to the point. "How did you find about Prometheus?" she reiterated. 

"Someone contacted me over the Internet," Jarod finally whispered. "They sent an anonymous email. Told me the key to the Centre lay invisible in Colorado." 

Parker was close to him now, breathing down his neck. "Who sent that email, Jarod?" Adding quickly, "I know you have the means to find out, so don't play dumb and say you don't know." 

He swung his head to face her, and their sudden proximity startled her. She jerked her head back a few inches, trying to keep her respective distance. "You don't think I tried?" he asked. "The closest I came was a location trace." He stopped. 

Parker's patience was wearing thin. "And?" 

"Triumvirate Station, Africa." Your father, he said unconsciously. "But I swear to you, I had no idea you'd come so close to me in New York City, or that Lyle would..." Jarod couldn't say the words, either. 

She wasn't sure when she had begun to pace nervously across the bedroom, but she found herself doing it soon enough. Her arms were crossed across her chest again, and the anger inside of her was infinitely close to exploding. Her mouth was spurting words she hadn't had time to comprehend, and Jarod was sitting quietly and obediently, reading the decrypted file. 

"If it wasn't for Lyle, you would have taken the liberty of gallivanting across the country and discovering all these juicy secrets for yourself. And then you would have doubled yourself over in fun leaving tantalizing clues around the country, no doubt. How long were you planning on making me wait to learn I had son, Jarod? How long? Were you going to wait until you had had proper time to grieve before you deigned me worthy of that kind of information? Or were you going to steal him under the cover of night and disappear forever, never the wiser about whom else might like to know, or who else might care? Were you going to wait until the Centre had sucked me of my entire life to tell me my life wouldn't be forgotten..." 

Jarod leaped up from his seat, intentionally putting himself in her path and grabbing Parker by the shoulders. "For Christ's sake, Parker, stop!" 

Her eyes blazed with anger. "Let go of me," she seethed. 

"No," he answered defiantly, tightening his grip to illustrate his point. For the moment it occurred to him he might be hurting her, but perhaps, he thought, the pain would inspire some sense in her. "I won't let go until you hear me out." She was squirming. "Just _listen_." She stopped moving, and he began to speak. "Of course I was going to tell you. If you hadn't jumped the gun and gotten to New York so soon I would have invited you to come along." She snorted. "What?" 

She was shaking her head. "You may be book-smart, but you have no common sense, Jarod. No one in their right-mind, least of all _you_, would trust me to come along without bringing along some sweepers." 

He was glaring at her intensely. "Believe or it not, Parker, I'm one of the few people in this world who _does_ trust you." 

Had she heard that right? Had sleep deprivation gotten to him so much that he claimed to trust the one person who had feverishly pursued him for five years? Or was this just one sick dream of hers? 

Her mouth moved futilely as she tried to think of something to say. It wasn't an easy task. "I'm not sure what you want me to say here," she managed. "If you're expecting to swoon and proclaim how I've really trusted you all these years, then you're thoroughly mistaken." 

Now he was smiling. God, she hated when he smiled like that... "I don't want you to change, Parker. I just don't want you to be angry at me just for the sake of being angry." 

Parker could feel the hostility dissipating between them, but his hands remained gripped on her arms. A second later, his fingers made contact with the now-expertly bandage wound on her arm, and she winced in pain. Instantly his hands released her. He was mumbling 'I'm sorry' when he stopped him from backing away. 

"Wait," she said. It was involuntary that her hand landed on his chest. 

His eyes were full of questions, but he didn't speak. Parker smiled a little and said, "I'm about to do something completely out of character, so I suggest you take it for what it's worth and never expect it ever again." Jarod was smiling now, too, smirking perhaps, but he still hadn't a clue. "Do you understand?" 

He stood his understanding. She hesitated, the weight of what she about to say feeling heavy on her chest. 

"Thank you." 

"For what?" 

Where to begin? "Saving my life. Again." I'd be lying in a pool of my own blood if it wasn't for you, she added unconsciously. "I haven't been much help these last few days, I know - hell, it seems like you've done everything and I've just been along for the ride." 

He seemed to be making a vain attempt to refute her statement, but he remained silent. Parker didn't seem to mind him like that, either. She noticed her hand was still resting on his chest, moved her fingers slightly, but made no great effort to remove it. 

"I just..." What else did she want to say? She couldn't answer that question. Parker hadn't put much thought into this move, but her last statement had left her thank-you hanging. She knew he was expecting something. Her mind drifted a bit, settling on a conversation two months earlier. _You run, I chase._ She couldn't help but chuckle and shake her head at the irony of her own words. 

"Something funny?" Jarod asked with a small smile. 

She looked up at him. "'You run, I chase.' Seems pretty ironic, considering the circumstances, don't you think? We're living in a game, and someone changed the rules without telling us." 

His eyes glanced down at her hand before answer. She had lightly gripped the fabric and (possibly unknowingly) tracing invisible patterns with the painted nail of her index finger. He made no attempt to stop her. "Circumstances change, and you adjust accordingly," he said with a whisper. 

The air between them, Parker observed, was always tense, most of the time with hostility and animosity. Now, however, she felt something between them she had felt for only the third time in her entire life. Once, her hand was pressed against cold glass; a second time, her body was chilled but a warm glow had begun to change that. And now...despite the chilly February weather and constant rain, the temperature was moderate, a non-issue in terms of extremities. The room was no longer simply hot or cold; it was bearable. 

He was waiting for an answer, and Parker didn't know what she could give. 

For five years of her life, she had lived according to a dictated set of rules, her life a pawn in a much bigger game of power. Whatever her genetic heritage, she had been born into an organization founded on the principle that loyalty equaled respect, respect equaled success, and success equaled life. She had been brainwashed by the one man she had expected to trust, and he had manipulated that trust to his own means, enslaving her to a cause she had no way of preventing. Her mother's elimination had been a sign to her: this is what happens to people who don't agree. She knew this now. 

Parker was enslaved because she could never run, never run away, never start a family of her own and lead a normal life. She may have convinced herself that "normal" was somehow boring and mundane, but it was like a saying she heard time after time. _You never know how much you miss something until you can't have it._ What she wouldn't give to get married and have a kid or two! Sure, her father had promised her a ticket out pending the recapture of Jarod, but how could she, in good conscience, send one man to Hell for her ticket out? 

She thought of Sydney, a brilliant man who had no choice but to complacently comply with orders in his early years, and was now paying the price of that complacency. She thought of Broots and his daughter, Debbie, who had willingly committed his life to a place so ridden with evil, it was a surprise he had simply disappeared one day. Perfect lives, like hers and Jarod's, corrupted by the Centre. 

_He's so close to his family you're slowly becoming useless to him._

She hated to admit when Lyle was right. With Margaret's arrival the family would be complete and there would be no reason for Jarod to stay in contact. We would hold he had ever wanted in his hands, and she would mean nothing then. For a second time that day, she felt insanely jealous. 

"Parker?" Jarod asked softly. "Is something wrong." 

She hesitated before answering quickly, "Don't forget me." Parker didn't recognize her own voice or the words it spoke. "Grant me this one selfish request and promise you won't forget me." 

In the most intimate gesture yet, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against her forehead. "Of course I won't," he said to her skin. His breath was warm against her, and strangely comforting. After a moment he leaned his forehead against hers, breathing warm puffs in her face. She closed her eyes, and wasn't sure why. Softly, he added, "I don't think I ever could." 

Parker contemplated her next move. If others could change the rules of this game, what could stop her from doing the same? 

In one move, she changed them, and finished what they started in December. 

TBC 


	10. X

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART TEN_**

Parker wondered if they had had the decency to name her son. 

The rain had stopped, with only the wind howling against the window now, and they lay together like a painter's silhouette. They were perfectly arranged - her arm thrown across his bare chest as it rose and fell, her head positioned over his heart as its beat slowly lulled her into a dreamy trance - as if someone had taken great pains to place them that way. It was the way they had simply fallen; their legs woven together like an intricate knot, it was a wonder they weren't simply lying on top of one another. 

Jarod had fallen asleep easily. It had been a rough few days and sleep was something one normally got when the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky became black. Parker should have been asleep, too; she had been for a while, in fact, but more dreams of her mother had driven sleep from her eyes. She was content to listen to his breathing, and think about her son. 

Her son. The words were foreign to her. 

In her mind, the scene played quiet before her. She was handing her brother, no - her son - over to her father. Mr. Parker's eyes had gleamed with anticipation, and at the time she had ignorantly believed her awaited to hold the bundle of joy that was his legacy, as he so bluntly put it. And the boy was his legacy, in a way Parker could never have imagined. The boy's eyes had been so plaintive, his small hands clenched in a fist and his body struggling and squirming as she handed him over. She had been blind to the implications of it at the time, but he hadn't. From the second he born, the boy had known right from wrong, and his small cry had tried to convince her. 

Blinded by her father's half-truth and flat-out lies, she hadn't understood. 

* 

Maybe the Centre had lightened up a bit, thought Cox as the sweepers carried the sleeping child into the bedroom. The boy had been given a sedative - rather than handcuffs and a traditional black hood - for his transfer from the Centre sublevel he had known his entire life to the safe house in Montana. Actually, it had been Cox who had issued the request, citing such barbaric methods might hamper the boy's performance for the Triumvirate Counsel in two days. He had seen the fear in Raines' eyes about a possible failure, and quickly approved it. 

With a harsh voice, he ordered the sweepers stand guard outside the room and locked the doors. He glanced at the resting boy before walking to the windows and throwing up the curtains. Bright rays of sun invaded the dark space, as the party had arrived just at sunrise. The scene outside was nothing short of bucolic - mountains and fields tinged with enough snow to mirror a postcard. Too bad they couldn't stay longer, mused Cox. As his involvement with Prometheus grew, he had been neglecting his second profession, as a taxidermist. 

Cox regarded the scene for a minute longer before retrieving his doctor's bag, ironically the same one he brought to another cabin two years ago to pronounce the death of the boy's surrogate mother. He opened it, still laughing aloud at the irony, and took out the hypodermic needle and the proper medication to counter act the sedative he had been given. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he filled the needle with the appropriate dose, tapped out the air bubbles, and slowly injected it into the boy's arm. He was moving his head as he rose back to consciousness, his tiny hands trying to cover a yawn as he awoke. 

His eyes fixed on Cox. "Baby sleepin'," he said, the maturity of his words not surprising Cox. It hadn't been a surprise when his language skills manifested themselves six months earlier than expected. 

"Yes," he said, placing the medical equipment back in his bag. He noted how the child referred to himself as 'Baby,' as the Centre staff hired to train and take care of him had not bothered to provide him with a real name. Names, someone had once told him, fostered an emotional connection to something, and, remembering Sydney, Cox knew the last thing anyone needed was an emotional connection to this boy. They had decided, then, that should he pass the Centre's tests and be adopted as an official Centre subject, he would be given a name. Then, and only then. 

"Baby dream." 

Cox regarded the child with false interest. "Of what?" he asked in a gentle voice. If Cox appeared interested in the child's inane babblings, then perhaps he would begin to trust Cox. 

The boy dipped his head shyly and smiled. "No tell." He put his finger crudely to his lips. "Secret." 

Cox leaned closer. "You can tell me, can't you?" He sounded genuinely trusting. 

The boy regarded him for a moment, and Cox was sure he was reading his mind, or at least sensing something inside him, as they had purposely stalled while developing his abilities so quickly. After all, he hadn't been born an empath by accident. Finally, the child nodded and whispered loudly in Cox's ear. "Momma!" 

Cox had heard about this, too. For six months now, the boy had held knowledge of a woman he had never met. It was only likely the knowledge came from the very inner sense he had been bred to possess, and it was only natural that he might see Catherine late at night, or in his dreams. His insistence on calling her 'momma,' however, troubled Cox, simply because of the possible problems such an attachment could and would cause later in his development. After all, family had driven the Centre's other prized possession to run away five years ago, and Cox wasn't ready to admit the same defeat at the hands of a child. 

"No," Cox said as he shook his head. "You don't have a momma." 

The boy was frowning and nodding his head at the same time. "Yes I do! Baby see Momma in bed. Momma sleepin', too." Cox watched the boy twist his face into a strange expression, as his genius mind searched for the proper words to describe the situation in his mind. He may have been intelligent and empathic beyond his years, but his vocabulary was still limited to his age. "Momma…cold. Man put blankie on Momma so she not cold." He frowned again. "Man leave Momma." 

Cox couldn't help but sigh, standing up off the bed and walking towards the bed. _Momma_ and _Man_ were, he figured, figments of the child's mind. There was no way his senses could be so refined at such a young age…the Centre had made a point to develop him slowly. Unless he was receiving outside lessons - something they had monitored, just in case - there was no way the things we said we true. It was logistically possible. They were mere ramblings… 

The doctor stopped, the idea suddenly occurring to him. 

He turned to the boy, startling him. "Do you know where Momma is?" 

The boy regarded Cox with a look of fear and dread. "No tell," he whispered. 

Cox continued to stare at him, and the boy began to squirm. A little longer, Cox mused, only a little longer before his innocent resolve shatters. This was bordering on the humane guidelines the Prometheus staff had set out in the beginning, but Cox didn't care. 'Momma' was a problem that needed to be dealt with *now*. "Tell me where your Momma is," he demanded. 

There was a break in the boy's expression. For a second, Cox was hopeful. And then it dissolved into Cox had seen before, in the boy's father once or twice. He was the cat who ate the canary. "I no have Momma, silly." He swatted at Cox's arm, much to the doctor's dismay. "You funny!" 

Cox glared at the boy for a moment longer before storming out of the bedroom, his head slamming into the doorframe in anger. 

* 

Her back was pressed up against the cold brick wall again; only this time she wasn't cowering as her brother aimed a pistol at her. Now, she was deadly still, only the sound of her labored breath and the hiss of a laundry venting steam. She was hiding, waiting, for the sound of footsteps on the paved alleyway. 

Silence. 

"Jarod?" she whispered, looking around frantically. She could barely see to the other side of the alley through the thick steam, let alone notice someone joining her. No one answered, and she realized she was utterly alone. 

It was then that she…felt the pistol pressed against her temple. It was cold outside, and the metal was even colder. 

And then, her brother's voice echoed in the alley… 

"You're dead." 

Parker bolted upright in bed, Lyle's words-- whether they were dreamed or remembered words--bouncing around in her head. Immediately, her skin was assaulted by the chilliness of the room, and her fingers instinctively grabbed the sheet around her before it slipped off. For a split second, she considered her modestly, noting her distinct lack of clothing. Only after a few seconds did she realize she was utterly alone in the quiet bedroom. 

At the foot of the bed she noticed a small pile of clothing--presumably from Emily-- and a white slip of paper. Parker reached for it, noticing the familiar handwriting and the singular word. _Outside_. She glanced out the window, seeing the panes slightly fogged over. Involuntarily, her body shivered. 

The door to the backdoor slammed shut as she left, and for a moment Parker wondered if it might wake up the rest of the sleeping house. The air outside was heavy and hazy, resembling spring air more than winter. She carefully walked the path to a small pond, noting that the puddles from last night's rain had frozen overnight. She exhaled, watching her breath materialize and then dissipate in front of her, and wondered why it hadn't snowed; after all, it _was_ the middle of February in Colorado… 

A breeze came from behind her, and Parker tugged on the arms of the thick sweater to keep warm. She doubted she'd be out for very long with only the sweater. In front of her, a haze coming from a half-frozen pond - another obscure sight, considering the season - helped to conceal the figure standing by the shore. She could make out his outline faintly, and was almost next to him before she could fully see him. He, too, was wearing a thick but inadequate sweater. 

Parker stopped beside him, trying to search for the place his gaze was so fixed on. She was unsuccessful. 

"How long have you been out here?" she asked, purposely skipping the awkward greeting she knew would be forthcoming. 

Jarod sighed, exhaling a puff of air. "Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen," he replied. 

Curiously, she asked, "Aren't you cold?" 

Now he turned to face him, the early hour reflected in his tired face. That, and something else her mind dwelled on for a moment too long… "Yes," he said succinctly. 

Parker accepted this, biting back the replies her mind was creating. Even for her, it was too early for their normal banter. So the two stood in silence, staring out at the pond. The house faced an eastwardly direction, and thus the rising sun was casting an eerie glow on the half-frozen water. However, nature rarely held Parker's attention for very long, and the silence soon became unbearable. "Any reason we're standing out here in the freezing cold?" 

Jarod shrugged. "To talk?" he suggested. Adding, "We haven't been talking much in the last few days." 

Parker couldn't help the cock of her head and the small laugh that escaped her lips. "Oh, really?" The playfulness in her voice was surprising, even to her. "As I recall, we did a great bit of talking last night…" Jarod was glaring at her now, and she thought she saw vain attempts at controlling a smile working in his face. Her tone became serious again. "I just don't see why we couldn't…talk in the comfort of heat or over some breakfast." 

He was rocking back and forth slightly, on the balls of his feet. It was an almost unnoticeable nervous tick. "Because…I thought we might need a little privacy, that's all." 

Oh no, she thought, not this. Inwardly, Parker was dreading this conversation. How did one go about starting this? Finishing? Would was she supposed to say? Shit - the thing that always bugged Parker the most was not being in control. So she did the only thing she could do - stand there and wait. 

"I…" Jarod began, glancing nervously at Parker. "I don't want…this," he gestured to the space between them, "to…get in the way." 

She couldn't help but stare incredulously. "'Get in the way'?" Parker laughed nervously. "You have been spending too much time with me, Jarod." 

He sighed; he was not pleased. "Listen, Parker. Just _listen_ for once and don't make any smart ass responses, okay?" he said briskly. The look on his face as he finished led Parker to believe he hadn't been thinking, that he'd spoken too soon. All she could do was stare, vaguely nodding. 

Jarod continued. "I don't want to act like last night never happened, that it was some kind of mistake." Parker opened her mouth to protest, but he was quick to quash the words. "_Listen_," he reminded her. "Look, I know right now is not the best time to try and work things out…" She added unconsciously, _what with both of us on the run for our lives and the fact that you've got a son somewhere_. "…but once this is all over…" He didn't define 'this', and Parker didn't push it, instead waiting for him to finish. He didn't, however, leaving the thought hanging. 

"Once this is all over…?" Parker encouraged. Still, he said nothing. And then it dawned on her. "What, are you expecting some kind of long-term _relationship_?" She was spitting the words in his face. "I can't believe this," she mumbled. "And I thought our roles were complicated before…" There was more than spite in her voice now; no, she was patronizing him…patronizing and ridiculing him. It felt good, the way putting someone down always made her feel that much better. "I suppose you'd want me to fly to whatever hole-in-the-wall, no-name hell hole you've been hiding in for a quickie, too." Such malice, she thought. 

Parker laughed; she couldn't help but laugh. The whole situation itself was humorous. Jarod looked pained and slightly humiliated. Parker didn't care; in fact, his puppy dog eyes looked rather pathetic to her. "Did you _honestly_ think after one night I was going to swoon and declare my undying love for you?" She shook her head, and crossed her arms across her chest in an unconscious defensive position. "You truly are naïve, even after all these years…" 

She was afraid he was going to crack, to explode in a rage, to be so possessed with anger he would say something they both would regret. Even as her ridicule-laced words poured out of her mouth, she feared the backlash. Parker had backed herself into this familiar corner, and now she waited. Waited for the inevitable response. 

Silence. 

Where was the anger she saw bubbling beneath him? 

Silence. 

God, she hated this. 

Silence. 

He was trying to provoke her, she thought. This is what he did - he played games to get to her, and they always worked. 

"Oh, for Christ's sake, say something!" Parker demanded. 

Jarod stepped towards her, invading her space and not giving a damn. He stopped so near her for a split second she actually thought he might try and kiss her. Parker tried to decide whether or not she would make an attempt to stop him. "Answer me one question, just one," he finally whispered. His voice was calmer than Parker knew he must have felt. 

She moved her head slightly in response. For an instant his fingers reached up and stroked her cheek tenderly, and then they were gone. "Tell me with a straight face that you never thought about…us. Together." 

Her eyes were wide. What a ridiculous question! She bit back a response to the effect. Of course she never thought about something like that. Those were fantasies she abandoned when she left the country at thirteen. And yet…Goddammit, why did he does this? Why did he make her second guess herself? They were adults, she told herself, mature adults. But could she lie to him…could she lie to herself? Perhaps she had to face the fact that once or twice, late at night, she would pass the hours by thinking about all the what-ifs in her life… 

Mature adults, she reminded herself. 

Parker averted her eyes and said nothing. Somehow, Jarod got the message. Quietly, he mumbled 'OK', nodding his head and taking a step backwards. The briefly intimate moment was gone. She didn't know what to say, not knowing whether an apology would mean anything. Hell, she wasn't even sure if she was sorry for he things she had just said. 

Jarod was staring at the pond again. 

"I gave Peter those dates we found last night," he said. Their previous conversation was over, apparently. 

Parker's arms crossed across her chest, though she made an attempt to look something other than confrontational. "He's up already?" she said, trying to be civil. 

Jarod nodded. "He gave me a hard time there for a while, but I managed to convince him to pull the information off the Centre mainframe." 

They were silent again. Parker felt like she was grasping at conversation straws - and missing every single one. Jarod mumbled he was going inside and brushed past her, leaving her alone by the water. 

* 

Broots crossed the hall to Sydney's office, another piece of the puzzle held tightly in his fingers. He was eager and apprehensive at the same time, he realized, the weight of this new discovery resting solely on him. 

He knocked on Sydney's closed door; no answer. He realized he might have knocked to softly - that the psychiatrist might have fallen asleep at his desk - and Broots knocked again, louder. Again, no answer. He tried the door handle and found it locked. Sydney locked his office for only one reason - when he went home. Broots sighed with a small smile; the psychiatrist had been looking a little worse for wear every since this whole fiasco started. 

Broots made his way to his small cubicle, making sure to dial the outside line with all the appropriate precautions _and_ making sure no one in the room was listening. The connecting line rang several times, and just as Broots was about to hang up, he picked up. 

"Hello?" Sydney's voice sounded tired. 

"I woke you," Broots replied apologetically. "I shouldn't have called…" 

Broots heard the psychiatrist chuckling. "It's all right, Broots." He paused. "What is it?" 

Broots looked down at the folder in his hand. "See…I'm not quite sure. It just doesn't feel right, that's all." Sydney urged him to continue and he did. "A week ago, Cox ordered the transfer of some supplies to Triumvirate Station in Africa, to be delivered yesterday. But four days ago," _the day Miss Parker was shot_, he meant, "the transfer was halted. The day after they were ordered for immediate delivery, and then a day a later pushed back…" 

"What kind of supplies?" Sydney asked. 

Broots shook his head. "That's the thing! They're repeatedly referred to as 'Prometheus,' but that's the only description given." 

"Prometheus," Sydney repeated. "It doesn't sound familiar." 

"I ran it through the Centre databanks. It's not a known project, on or off the books." 

Broots heard Sydney sigh. "I'm sorry, Broots, but I just don't see why any of this matters." He sounded exhausted. 

Suddenly, the technician was excited. "It does matter, Sydney; at least, I think it does." He collected his thoughts. "Raines' final transfer order came shortly after a call I was able to trace to--get this!--_Colorado_. That's where that Priority sweeper team was sent after Jarod." Adding, "It makes you wonder…" 

Sydney mumbled that it did, but Broots noted that he sounded distracted. The psychiatrist sighed. "Parker called last night," he said. "She said they were okay, but…I don't know, I think she was holding something back." 

Broots took this in, but said nothing. It sounded like typical Miss Parker behavior. 

"I'll ask her about Prometheus the next time we speak," said Sydney. 

Broots agreed and then ended the call. He sighed, leaning back in his chair and examining the folder. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Sydney was worried about Jarod and Miss Parker. 

* 

Cox slammed his hand against the doorframe in anger. Fate must be out to sabotage the natural order of succession, he thought as he glanced into the bedroom of the sleeping child. 

It wasn't enough that Lyle had jeopardized everything by taking potshots at Parker. Or that she, with the help of Jarod, was on the run and ever-so-carefully inching closer to the truth. Or that Mr. Parker had somehow managed to survive his fall into the ocean and was alive somewhere. No, that wasn't enough. Now there was evidence the Prometheus project's core files had been breached on two separate occasions; what information was accessed was still undetermined. And to compound it all, there was no doubt in Raines' mind that the resurrected Mr. Parker had aided - possibly, facilitated - his supposed son's escape. The lines of allegiance were being drawn, and their enemies were slowly growing in numbers. 

The doctor found the sweeper in charge, and pulled him aside. 

"We leave tomorrow at nine," Cox hissed. "Chairman's orders." 

* 

He pressed the _send_ button, knowing the email's recipient would greatly appreciate the information being passed onto him. Standing behind him, the figure's reflection shown on the computer monitor. He smiled. 

"Our plan has been set in motion." 

TBC 


	11. XI

**The Rules Have Changed** _by Tahlia_  
dayglo_parker@yahoo.com 

* * *

**_PART ELEVEN_**

He leaned back in his chair, shutting his eyes and listening to Peter's continuous typing, and thought about how complicated a person she was. She was perpetually angry--at the world, at him, at herself, at anything and everything that didn't present itself as submissive to her will. She was rigid, cold, and intimidating to just about everyone. And yet, deep down, she was still the scared little girl who had left for Europe when she was thirteen and had returned as something he could barely recognize. On the outside she was her father; inside, her mother. 

Jarod knew everything was changing--to him, life was always changing and he had grown accustom to it--but things were different. Five years and their relationship was, for the most part, constant in its pace. He ran, and she chased; he helped the innocent and she contributed to the organization that exploited them; he taunted her and she fell for the bait. He wasn't sure when their roles as cat and mouse changed, when he began chasing his past and she started running from it. But then that wasn't accurate: he had been searching for his family since day one, so his role had never changed in that aspect. The change, he decided, came when she became a part of the past he sought after with such fervor. 

The dilemma he struggled with, then, was either one of them ready for this? 

For months now he had been searching for a different truth than the truth about his past, trying to pinpoint the exact moment in time he stopped being property in her eyes and became human just like her. He was trying to determine when, in her decision-making process, he began to be considered as something simply more than an element of the hunt, as someone who could be adversely affected by her decision. 

He remembered the look in her eyes--that struggle between utter trust and complete disbelief--as their subway car careened closer and closer toward explosion. That was the beginning. It was always in her eyes. Standing in secret behind Alex, before she threw herself between him and her father, his eyes met hers and she spoke to him without opening a word. _You came_, hers shouted, _somehow I knew you would come_. Not once did he see that familiar spark, the look that screamed of the cat that had eaten the canary. When Alex dashed out the door, he tried to listen for her footsteps behind him as he followed, and tried not to imagine being pinned between the two of them. They never came; no, he wasn't her prey then. 

He stood in the cemetery and watched as they lowered an empty coffin into undeservingly hallowed ground. She wore a large hat and dark sunglasses--to hide the emotion and the physical signs of their journey, others assumed--but Jarod knew it was to hide the fact that she felt nothing. Mr. Parker's careful striping away of what he considered to be human weakness had left a daughter unable to mourn the passing of her father. Standing there, she was the product of her father's life, and when Jarod bowed his head as the priest read a prayer, he prayed not for the dead but for her. When everyone had gone, he remained behind his tree, unable to pull his eyes from her as she peered into the hole where her father's body was not. Adrenaline rushed through him when she caught him in her own gaze, relief following when she kept on walking. He wasn't her prey then, either. 

And now, in the last four days, she was not his pursuer. Yet she was also not his ally--she pointed a gun at him in that hotel room the first night, and her words earlier this morning had been like strong acid on the kind mood he had woken up in. Now Jarod was at a loss when it came to classifying their relationship. Early in his escape, people feel into two categories: good and evil. Then, it had been easy to tell the difference; he helped good people whom the evil ones took advantage of. Sydney had been the first individual to blur the lines for Jarod; Miss Parker was the second. 

He spent his freedom making decisions, learning and growing, exploring the part of himself the Centre had hidden from him all his life. Sitting in his room, Jarod found himself at yet another precipice. Was she right--was something resembling a long-term relationship what he really wanted, even under the most adverse conditions? He thought he knew when he ventured into the crisp morning air, but when he heard her footsteps behind him, all that he knew as fact seemed to slip away into the haze. 

One thing hadn't left, he reminded himself. If nothing else, he was sure what had happened between them was not a mistake. Some things just happened so fast and they were falling before they felt the floor crumbling... 

"What's she like?" Jarod's eyes flew open and he found Peter leaning across the back of his seat and staring intently at him. An idea of how much he had grown since they had last seen each other struck Jarod immediately: his face had lost part of its baby fat, and Peter seemed to have aged years in a few short months. 

Jarod ran a hand through his hair. "Who?" he asked, hoping the Centre hadn't added the quirk of telepathy to Peter. Jarod had seen the spark between the boy and Miss Parker when she walked into the room yesterday afternoon, though Peter had never been very forthcoming about his contact (if any) with her. The revelation that they may have never met sent another chill down Jarod's spine that he didn't care to explore at the time. 

Peter said nothing to answer Jarod, only looked at the framed picture of Margaret next to the computer. 

"Oh," Jarod sighed. He hesitated before answering truthfully, "I'm sure she's a wonderful, caring woman." When he looked at the picture again, Jarod stole a glance at Peter; in his mind, he began to guess where the conversation was going. 

"You don't remember much about her," Peter stated with a peculiar look on his face. He seemed to be disappointed and angry. 

"No, I don't." It may have been the truth and he may have thought about it more times than he could count, but it still hurt inside. 

"But you love her regardless," his statement was incomplete, and Jarod nodded to agree and to urge Peter to continue, "even though you have no way of knowing whether she loves you, too, or even remembers you." 

Jarod stared at Peter before he answered. He supposed he could get angry at what he had said, but such a response wouldn't do much good. Peter seemed to have slipped into a mood frequented by Miss Parker, and he knew from experience that anger meeting anger only provokes something worse. "A mother's love," he began, but hesitated, for reasons he wasn't completely sure of, "is unconditional. You can never forget something like that." His vision was so trained on Peter he didn't notice the figure that was standing in the doorway; for that matter, neither did Peter. 

"But _you_ forgot," he countered. 

Jarod supposed he could have edged his chair closer and explained how an impressionable five year-old can be made to believe practically anything. He could have laid out the subtle but effective techniques the Centre had used to convince him his parents were gone. He could have told him the lies he had been fed. If anger provoked him properly, he could have slammed the DSA player in front of Peter and forced him to watch them tell his younger self that his parents had perished in a plane crash. He could have done any one of these things; but he didn't. 

"Peter," he said softly, knowing the answer before the question had left his mouth, "what's bothering you?" 

His eyes were pleading with Jarod; he could see Peter wanted to tell him. Yet he suspected the twelve years of Centre training were telling him he was weak. "Nothing," he said a little too quickly. He was shaking his head to emphasize the point, but it only made his lie bigger. 

"You're anxious about her coming here." It was a statement, not a question. Peter looked up from the spot he had been examining on the floor with eyes that told Jarod he had hit the nail directly on its head. Slowly, the boy began to nod, unable to deny the truth any longer. Softly, Jarod requested, "Tell me about it." 

He bit his lip and looked down at the floor. He was mumbling something Jarod couldn't understand, and when he asked him to repeat it, his voice was quiet and extremely vulnerable. "What if she won't love me, too?" 

"You know," and now Jarod really did move his chair closer to Peter, "I wonder the same thing every day, too." 

Peter's eyes were wide and disbelieving. "You said it yourself. All mothers love their sons." 

"And the rational side of me believes that." It was true, Jarod admitted to himself. "But there's this nagging irrational voice in my head that keeps telling me that she'll hate me for all the horrific things I've created in this world, all the lives I've destroyed, all the families I've broken apart..." Jarod had to stop himself before he forgot this was not about himself, but about Peter. 

"Jarod," Peter chided. He reached over the back of the chair and managed to pat him once or twice on the knee. "I doubt she thinks any of that is your fault. She knows you were misled, that you didn't have a choice in any of it." 

Jarod found himself admiring a familiar glimmer in Peter's eye. He'd never noticed until now, and wondered if he, too, had this sympathetic glow in his eye when he was fifteen. 

"You're probably right," Jarod admitted, as if the revelation had never occurred to him. This was an exercise, he reminded himself. "Just like I'm sure she'll love you, too." 

For a moment, Jarod was sure his point had been made. Then, suddenly, Peter's eyes were downtrodden and focused on the ground again. _Dammit_. "But how can you be _absolutely_ sure?" 

Just then, the presence behind him registered; she moved within the field of his peripheral vision when she leaned against the doorframe. He had no idea how long she had been there, but managed to sneak a glance he wondered if she noticed, since she made no response. Another glance at Peter, and he was oblivious still. 

"Sometimes," he said to Peter, but as the words left his mouth, he realized they were meant for a larger audience, "all you have is your gut feeling and the only thing you can do is trust it." 

In the corner of his eye, he swore he saw Parker duck her head in embarrassment. 

* 

He moved as quietly as he could around the boy, placing each of the instruments back into his bag with extreme care. The last thing Cox needed was a cranky two year-old in a small airplane. When he realized the dim light of the stars pouring in from the window wasn't helping much, he moved toward the light on the nightstand. With trepidation, he switched it on--afraid somehow, the boy would sense it--but it only revealed his tranquil, sleeping face. Cox released the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. 

His fingers brushed against the syringe on the nightstand, where Cox had placed it after its use earlier that morning; as it happened, the boy shifted his position and let out a small moan. Cox's first thought was that he, too, had sensed the syringe, but Cox dismissed the thought as ludicrous. He reminded himself that though the boy was smart and empathic and quite possibly the savoir of the Centre, he was also two years old. It would have taken years to develop the kind of ability Cox was already attributing to him. 

He was staring at him, he realized, and Cox glanced nervously to the doorway; none of the sweeper team were observing. 

He took a small baggie from his doctor's bag, intent on sterilizing the syringe ahead of time, should its use be required again. A sedative strong enough to knock the boy out for an extended plane ride was also in danger of effecting his ability to perform for the Triumvirate; the plan, then, was to provide the boy with enough rest and a trusting environment so that he willingly boarded the airplane in the morning. Of course, there was always the contingency plan. 

The safe house was made with wooden floorboards, and though the place was sturdy and eerily silent, crossing over to his chair Cox managed to find the single squeaky board in the building. His first reaction was to glance into the darkened living room--no movement, because no one cared whether he made a sound or not--and then he glanced at the boy. He was turning over in his sleep, groaning again like he had a minute ago, but he was making a sound that froze Cox in place. 

The boy was uttering a name he had no right to know. 

Cox managed to find the strength to kneel beside his bed and watch the boy's eyes open wide. He wasn't speculating on how such a tiny creak could have woken this prodigy; instead, he had to resist the urge to shake why he had said what he said out of the boy. The boy's eyes were wide and alert despite his grogginess, and for the first time Cox noticed the hint of blue. He had no idea where in the boy's family history that trait had come from. 

"You bad man, too," he said calmly. He didn't shrink back from Cox in fear. 

The next few minutes were a blur of actions; namely, him scooping the child up from his bed in one arm and carrying his doctor's bag in the other. As he rushed from one room to another, the boy's arms clasped around Cox's neck in a very parental gesture; perhaps he was still asleep and had no idea what he had just called him. When he entered the living room, the sweepers regarded him with confusion. 

"Sir?" one of them asked. He didn't take the time to figure out whom it was. 

"We're leaving," his insecurity spoke for him. 

No one moved. "Sir, you said-" 

"I know what I said!" Cox shouted. The boy in his arms buried his face in Cox's neck in protest. "And we're leaving right now." 

Finally someone moved. Cox vaguely registered them scurrying behind him as he raced toward the airplane. 

* 

Her fingers were resting on his upper arm, but she might as well have been burning holes in his skin, because he felt the same way. She was giving herself leverage, grasping him to steady her as she stood on her tiptoes and read over his shoulder. She had done it once before--in Carthis, reading the letter found stuffed in a bible--and even then the close contact (of which _she_ initiated) had baffled him. Now it was contradictory--had they not been verbally sparring four hours ago? 

"I don't understand," she murmured, and Jarod couldn't ignore the way her breath was warm against his neck. Suddenly they were ten years old again, leaning across a table with their palms six inches apart; the spark was there, then, and now he felt it creeping up on him again. He shut his eyes and he could feel it, reach out with his mind and grab it. _Can you feel it, too?_

He turned his head to the side, in a vain attempt to address her, breaking his own reminiscing. "Genetic profiles," he said, and he moved them closer to her to illustrate what he was talking about. 

Her fingers slipped off his arm; he wasn't sure whether he should be glad or disappointed. He turned and, not surprisingly, found Parker with her arms crossed and her eyes glaring in his direction. "I _know_ what they _are_," she spit. 

Peter and Major Charles sat at a table adjacent to where they stood; though they had been watching the two for some time with a guarded smile and a thousand motives behind their behavior swirling in their minds, they managed to share a smile with Jarod at Parker's familiar side. And maybe she noticed, because instantly her voice dropped to a more conversational tone. She finished by saying, "I just don't know what they _say_." 

"They say," Jarod crossed to the table, and lay the profiles down, side-by-side, "that the two samples the Centre used are remarkably similar." As he laid each down, he announced its date. 

Parker remained behind him for a moment before she closed the distance, coming to stand just to his right and, incidentally, in front of the profile for the sample that had ultimately created her... "Similar, how?" She swallowed whatever emotion was creeping up inside of her. "Are we talking brothers here?" 

Jarod stared at the massive sequences of genetic code before answering. "Potentially." 

He looked up into Parker's face, and though her eyes were trained on the profile in front of her, he could see the gears in her mind: he could see her searching her brain, trying to find brothers to rectify the problem in front of them. When he heard her sigh, he knew she had failed. To avoid her catching him staring, he began to examine the profile again--the first paternal sample. Maybe if he could decipher some of the strings of DNA, he could determine whom the sample had come from... 

"That's odd," he muttered to himself. 

"What?" Parker demanded. 

He pointed to a line in the code in the first paternal sample, a series of letters, though he sincerely doubted they meant anything to Parker. "A serious congenital birth defect," he explained. 

Her eyebrows shot up. "This man is disabled?" 

"No," Jarod said with a quick shake of his head, "a birth defect this serious...a child won't make it through the second trimester, let alone full-term." 

Jarod was so intent on Parker's reaction to the revelation that the Centre had harvested tissue from a child not yet to term that his eyes didn't see Charles sitting at the table, white as a sheet. 

"Do you know what caused the birth defect?" Parker asked cautiously. She, too, was unaware of Charles. 

"No one's completely sure what causes some congenital birth defects. It could have just been bad genes." His hand grasped the second profile, and he slid it closer to him on the table. "Maybe if I can locate the same gene sequences in this second profile, it'll give me a little insight..." His voice trailed off before he realized he was reacting. 

Jarod was staring at the profile, unable to get what he thought he saw out of his brain. He felt Parker's fingers gently on his arm again, and though the gesture had been small, it startled him. When he looked up, he imagined the revelation made him resemble a deer in the headlights. "What is it?" she asked softly, and he was too preoccupied to notice how strange her voice sounded when it was soft. 

"I found," his mouth hung open and no more words came. He didn't know how to verbalize the suspicion that he hadn't liked to admit had been living in the back of his brain for days now. He heard Parker asking what he had found, but all he could do was look at Peter. He wondered if he stared at the boy long enough, he, too, would understand. Jarod wondered if he looked as blindsided as he felt. 

Now Parker was shaking at him, raising her voice, as if she thought that would do any good. He looked at her pathetically, but he couldn't tell her. Inside, he knew he should, but he couldn't. 

Jarod looked plaintively at Charles, and for the first time noticed the color draining from his father's face and how his eyes searched the floor while his mind was somewhere else entirely. Perhaps the older man sensed his son's gaze fixed on him, and he looked up to see Jarod's silent revelation plastered all over his face. Maybe he guessed it, too, because he pushed his chair away from the table and jumped to his feet. 

All Jarod could think to do was follow his father as he retreated, despite Parker's insistence behind him. Deep down, he wondered if she knew, too. 

* 

Cox spied the sleeping child as his phone rang. So things hadn't gone precisely according to plans. He had been calm in Cox's arms until the sight of the small airplane came into the child's view, and sedatives had been necessary to stop him from kicking and screaming. While all the sweepers seemed baffled by the sudden turn in the boy's behavior, Cox had a sneaking feeling why he had protested, and it had everything to do with the very powers the Centre had given him; or, rather, cultivated in him. 

He stared at his phone, knowing who was on the other end. Nothing moved without Raines knowing about it. He sighed, and answered it. "Yes?" 

"You disobeyed me," the old man hissed. Others might have cowered at such a tone--Ari, the up-and-coming leader of the Centre's Priority sweeper team, whom Raines had taken a peculiar interest in--but Cox remained firm. In fact, he almost smiled. 

"I did," as if it were a trivial matter, "but I assure you I have the Centre's best interests at heart when I say I'm moving up the schedule as a precaution." 

"What precaution?" Something caught in Raines' voice on the word 'precaution,' but Cox couldn't explain it. 

Cox repeated the name the boy had uttered in his sleep, adding, "He knows, and _you_'ve got to figure out a way to deal with it. This isn't my problem," even though Cox knew Raines would delegate the responsibility to him. He heard Raines' sharp intake of breath, and he knew the new Chairman was slowly losing control of this once-simplistic situation. 

"I received something unsettling in my personal email account this afternoon," Raines announced. Cox wondered if this was the reason why he had hesitated earlier. 

"Unsettling how?" In all honestly, Cox had to fight to hide the smile on his face and in his voice. There was no secret that Raines' grasp of power was tenuous, and he couldn't help but watch the wheezing old man squirm at every little threat. 

He breathed into the receiver for a moment. "Just watch your people at the transfer sight." 

With that, Raines hung up. 

* 

"Dad!" 

Jarod chased his father from the dining room into a small corner by a window in the kitchen. Charles was leaning against the frame of the window, staring out at the mid-morning scene: the haze from the pond in the backyard had lifted, but the half-frozen water remained. The rest of the yard was cold and barren, indicative of the cold weather and the atmosphere, and Jarod had to swallow hard and ignore the signs it was giving him. Perhaps it was an omen, or an indicator, like the storm that raged in Scotland the night before Macbeth killed Duncan. 

"Dad," Jarod repeated. He searched for a way to describe how Charles looked. "You look like..." 

Charles turned to his son. "Like I've seen a ghost?" Jarod nodded, and watched his father look back out the window. "That's because I have." 

"I'm not sure I understand-" 

"I never told you about it," Charles interrupted. "I won't lie to you and tell you I had forgotten, because no one forgets these things, but I guess..." he paused, "I guess I had put it out my mind. I suppose your mother has tried, too." Charles looked at his son with pain. "I thought, maybe, once your mother was with us, we'd tell you, but I guess now..." 

Jarod could see his father was struggling with the weight of a truth. "Tell me what?" He was surprised at how desperate he sounded. 

"It took your mother two months to admit she wanted to try again after what happened. Catherine put us on the fast track in the clinic and soon enough, we were blessed with you, but neither of us could forget him." The name he had uttered should have shocked him; Jarod, however, was too interested in his father's revelation to notice its casual drop. 

"We called him our Christmas Miracle," Charles said with a hint of nostalgia. "Your mother and I had been trying for years, but nothing seemed to work. We had pretty much given up the idea of ever raising a child of our own. Then a friend of your mother told us about the NuGenesis clinic in Atlanta. To us, they were miracle workers: we came to Atlanta in January, and by June..." He trailed off. 

All Jarod could do was stand there and wait for his father to finish, because he wasn't sure what he might say if he opened his mouth and let his thoughts pour out. 

"Of course, the doctors told us not to get our hopes up, that the pregnancy was high-risk and there was a chance it might not succeed, but who were they to hold back our joy?" He swallowed. "We were sitting on the porch one night in July when your mother started having sharp pains in her abdomen. We panicked, ran to the hospital...there was a doctor from NuGenesis waiting in the lobby when we arrived, and I guess that should have been our first indication..." He paused. "She had a miscarriage. The fetus suffered from such a severe birth defect that the pregnancy terminated itself." He shook his head. "Some Christmas miracle." 

The pieces fell into place in Jarod's mind. "December 27, 1959." 

"He should have been your older brother, Jarod." He sighed. "I had no idea the Centre was so depraved that they would...harvest...from a...the NuGenesis doctor told us he was going to collect samples so they could see what had gone wrong...I had no idea they would..." His voice cracked with emotion. 

Yet despite his urge to comfort his father, Jarod couldn't move. With this new revelation, the voice in the back of his head grew louder and louder. He imagined he looked dumfounded. He opened his mouth, the question on the tip of his tongue, and he prayed he could find the voice within him to ask. "Dad, I need to know," he began, but Charles looked at him and knew already. 

"The moment you started throwing those dates around yesterday, I..." Charles paused, "but I looked at you and realized neither of you had any idea what you had in your hands, so how could I just throw something like there out into the open without knowing for sure?" 

"And now?" he whispered. 

Charles was looking past Jarod; he turned, and saw Parker standing in the kitchen doorway. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest. He was sure she must have been standing there the entire time--in the back of his mind, he could remember her footsteps trailing his across the dining room. She wore an expression that, to some, was indecipherable; to Jarod, he knew the very same question was on her mind. He wondered if she, too, knew the answer. 

"I saw it in your eye," Charles said to Jarod, "when you looked at the second profile, you knew. And you," he looked at Parker, "you've got it in your eyes now. You both know, for Christ's sake, why do you need me to say it?" 

There was silence. 

"Because," Parker said behind him, "if you say it, then I'll know it's really true." Jarod had to duck his head when he heard how vulnerable she sounded. It was too strange to listen to. 

"Fine!" Charles said, his anger pushing him away from the window. "May 17, 1960?" 

His gaze fell on Jarod, and its heaviness lifted Jarod's eyes to meet his father's. He noticed, for the first time, the tears pulling in the Major's eyes. All Jarod could think of was that second profile, staring at the line of genetic code that had, in one fetus, created a severe birth defect; in a second child, it had created a genius. 

With a note of sadness, Charles replied, "Happy Birthday, son." 

TBC 


End file.
